


the expedition set out to chart the distance from me to you

by eneiryu



Series: the history of our histories [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Growing Free, Growing Up, M/M, Road Trips, Who We Are and Who We Choose To Be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:01:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 87,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27456145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eneiryu/pseuds/eneiryu
Summary: Liam Dunbar: true alpha’s beta. And, you know, whatever else he gets to be.
Relationships: Liam Dunbar/Theo Raeken
Series: the history of our histories [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2006026
Comments: 63
Kudos: 123





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic literally spent months titled "[five times Liam wanting Theo]," and somehow became an 86k ode to Liam Dunbar. Laugh with me, friends.
> 
> This fic contains a plethora of takes on prompts from various lovely folks, including [lomitzz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lomitzz/pseuds/lomitzz) and [TheodoreR](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheodoreR/pseuds/TheodoreR). A _particular_ thanks to [presumptious_quirks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/presumptious_quirks/pseuds/presumptious_quirks), who asked if I would consider "writing Liam's POV from like when he first started liking Theo?" and [manonlemelon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/manonlemelon/pseuds/manonlemelon), who wanted "Liam’s pov of after the trial and Theo changing and Liam slowly giving up on the idea of them ending up together?"
> 
> I don't know that any of you were expecting 86k words but I aim to please.
> 
> Credit to [snaeken](https://archiveofourown.org/users/snaeken) and [ExtraSteps](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ExtraSteps/pseuds/ExtraSteps) for the beta reading and general plot assists. My immense gratitude to them both.

After they stumble their way out of the Wild Hunt, Liam and Hayden and Corey and Mason go to Scott’s house, and stand around with the rest of the pack feeling alternatively manic—everyone just randomly stopping to yell _Stiles!_ , and greet him like they’re seeing him for the first time in ages, though as the night wears on he’s been back, _remembered,_ for one hour, then two, then three—and blank-eyed with exhaustion, and disbelief, and an incredulous kind of _did that really all happen?,_ communicated in shared, but silent, looks. 

Theo hovers on the edge of it all, clearly running his own personal gamut of trying to stay out of Argent’s eyeline, and the Sheriff’s eyeline, and everyone _else’s_ eyeline, and if none of the pack seem know what to do with themselves then Theo _really_ doesn’t seem to know what to do with himself. Every now and then he’ll glance at Liam, but he always glances away before Liam can really look fully back; before Liam can search his face, or the tense line of his shoulders. 

But eventually Hayden turns her face up against the side of Liam’s—she’d been sitting angled behind him on the couch, pressed up close with the fingers of their left hands intertwined—and she asks quietly, “You think you could run me home?” She doesn’t have her car, after all, and her and Val live on the outskirts of town, where the rent’s cheaper. Liam nods, silently—he can smell her exhaustion, and the specific anxious twist to her scent that she gets when she’s concerned about her sister—and gets up.

Theo watches them go, his face still dirt-covered and unreadable.

Liam drops Hayden off, and then—idling at the intersection where he’ll have to make a decision—he turns left, instead of right. Heading home instead of back to Scott’s. He’s just so _tired;_ his adrenaline crashing and leaving him shaky, and watery-limbed. Besides, if history’s any indication—and history _is_ an indication, Liam’s been through enough of these post-climatic battles now to know—the rest of the pack will be jockeying for sleeping areas at the McCall house, and while Liam’s gotten used to the somewhat-lumpy feel of the McCall couch, he’d rather get at least a few hours in his own bed before heading back.

But as he’s shutting his bedroom door behind himself—his parents said a heartfelt goodnight to, their breathing soft and even and obliviously _present_ down the hall—Liam stops, and frowns. The click of his bedroom door closing isn’t anything like the sound that the elevator doors at the hospital had made as _they_ had finished sliding shut, but it’s—as the saying goes—close enough for jazz. Liam rests first one hand and then the other against the wood, mirroring the position he’d been in as he’d slammed up against them, as he remembers yelling at Theo: _what are you doing?_ The metal had been so much cooler against his palms.

Theo’s smirking, stupid face had been on the other side; unreachable.

 _What an asshole,_ Liam thinks to himself, letting his hands slide down, down, until they’re hanging by his sides. _Being the bait._ What had that even _meant?_ Like fifteen minutes before that Theo had been claiming he was going to use _Liam_ as the bait. He’d claimed he was going to run away. Liam’s palms are still tingling slightly from the scrape of his skin against the door, and they feel nothing at all like they had when Liam had shoved Theo back away from the ambulance, his own growled-out _believe me, I know_ , ringing in his ears. 

_Whatever,_ he forces himself to think, and goes to climb into bed. 

He falls asleep fast, but wakes up almost as quickly. The nightmares come fierce, and photo-realistic; more like memory than dreams. Liam comes to the first time scrabbling at his chest, looking for the cratered wound from a Ghost Rider bullet that isn’t there. He comes to the second time with his hands pressed upside-down to the curve of his neck, already expecting it to be broken from the force of the Ghost Rider’s arm around it, dragging him back as he’d been preparing to leap from the school’s balcony onto that horse, looking for a way into the Hunt.

But: _I did all this to_ keep you _from being taken_ , Theo had shouted incredulously, mid-struggle with the Ghost Rider who’d been seconds away from taking Liam anyway, Theo’s best and unexpected efforts be damned. 

Liam stares up at his night-dark ceiling, and then he says, “You suck at running away,” because clearly Theo _had_. 

He rolls out of bed.

But when he gets back to Scott’s—barefoot, still dressed in his thin cotton sleep pants and a ratty t-shirt—it’s not to a quiet, exhausted house like he’s expecting. Argent and the Sheriff and Scott are all standing around on the lawn, looking a mix of frustrated and conflicted. Liam frowns at the strange tableau, and finishes pulling his creaking SUV into a stop by the sidewalk, 

“What’s going on?” Liam wonders as he opens his door, and steps out. He hops a little with a hiss as his bare feet hit the cool asphalt.

Scott grimaces. The line of the Sheriff’s mouth goes tight. But it’s Argent who calls, “If you’re looking for Theo, he isn’t here.”

Liam feels his expression spasm, and something alien but _anxious_ go bolting down his spine. It doesn’t even occur to him until later to wonder why Argent would assume he was here looking for Theo. “What? What do you mean? Where is he?”

Argent just smiles, wan. “If I knew that, I wouldn’t be standing here, would I?”

He says it more quietly, lowering his volume as Liam walks closer and closer, until Liam has joined their loose little circle. Liam stops and looks around at all of them. Intuition is starting to twist itself tight in his gut but even still he says slowly, “I don’t understand. Why’d he _leave?_ ” Because Theo’s truck is gone, now that Liam’s thinking to look for it, and Theo leaving is the only sensible conclusion for the looks on everyone’s faces.

Scott winces and looks away. Argent’s expression doesn’t change, his mouth still twisted in that strange, sharp smile—like he’d been proved right about something—so it’s the Sheriff who meets Liam’s eyes, and observes dryly, “Probably he thought someone might arrest him, or something.”

Liam frowns, and looks back at him. “Were you _planning_ on arresting him?”

The Sheriff doesn’t seem fazed in the slightest by Liam’s pointed tone. “I would have at least appreciated having the option to.”

Almost as soon as he’s done speaking, there’s a growing clatter and scrape of noise from down the street. They all look up, almost as a unit, to see Parrish come trotting back down the middle of the asphalt. His eyes are just fading from hellfire-orange back to their human color. He shakes his head.

“Trail disappears fast. Whatever Theo did to mask his scent, he did it well,” he reports.

The Sheriff sighs, and scrapes a hand down his weathered face. “I’ll put out an ABP for his description, and his license plate number.” He doesn’t sound optimistic about the chances of either of those things producing results.

Argent nods, and adds, “I’ll make some calls, put the clans on alert.”

 _Is all this really necessary?_ Liam thinks about saying, but.

But: _whatever happened to you, you deserved it_. Josh and Tracy hadn’t really had funerals, per se, but the Sheriff had worked out some kind of deal with one of the local cemeteries and Liam had gone with the rest of the pack to bear witness when they’d been buried. There hadn’t been anyone but the pack _left_ to bear witness, after all; Tracy had killed her only remaining family in a night terror brought on by what the Dread Doctors had done to her, and Josh had been a foster kid. 

So—ignoring Scott watching him curiously, _expectantly_ —Liam says nothing.

\---

After Monroe, after the hospital, Liam sticks to Theo like a goddamn _lamprey_ ; he remembers what happened last time, after the Wild Hunt. Theo keeps giving him these weird looks but Liam doesn’t care; the only time he lets Theo out of his sight for any significant stretch of seconds is when Theo goes to the bathroom at the McCall’s, and even _then_ , Liam hovers in the hallway, blocking Theo’s only exit out of the house unless Theo is desperate enough to climb out the high, narrow bathroom window. Liam doesn’t think Theo is, but he keeps his ears peeled regardless.

“Do you think I’m going somewhere?” Theo finally demands, coming out of the bathroom and nearly running directly into Liam, because Liam—understandably!—had maybe zoned out a little, slumped against the wall and exhausted. 

“Yeah,” Liam shoots back, snorting, but neither sound is particularly malicious. Just _knowing_. “Because that’d be so out of character.”

Theo looks like he maybe wants to ask something else—something like _why would you care even if I did?_ —but he doesn’t. Instead he makes a face and gestures pointedly out, back towards the rest of the house, clearly indicating that Liam should lead him wherever Liam wanted to go, since Liam was so goddamned determined to shepherd him around. Liam rolls his eyes. Theo Raeken: _such a drama llama._

Liam does feel a little bad about it all later, though, because apparently Argent and the Sheriff and Scott all have the same idea as him, and they corner Theo—and therefore kind of automatically Liam, considering Liam’s lamprey impression—and then escort Theo away somewhere, with Liam very firmly ordered to stay behind. Liam spends the next hour with the edge of his thumb permanently between his teeth, gnawing on a constantly-healing fingernail. Mason keeps slapping his hand away from his mouth but it doesn’t help; Liam just puts it right back, his eyes fixed on nothing and his ears peeled for any sound of engines. Argent and the Sheriff and Scott had driven off with Theo, and so they’d have to drive back, right? 

When Theo returns, though, trailing along behind Argent and the Sheriff and Scott, he looks no worse for wear. _Suspiciously_ no worse for wear, actually, and Liam squints at him.

“What’d they do to you?” He demands.

“What do you _think_ they did to me?” Theo shoots back, because he’s an asshole and allergic to giving straight answers. Liam punches him in the arm. “ _Ow_ , mother _fucker_ ,” Theo swears, and then flushes when half the pack rounds on him in surprise at the sudden volume. He jerks to look back at Liam and hisses, “They didn’t do _anything_ to me, you prick.”

Liam’s still not buying it. “So then why the,” he makes a wild gesture, clearly meaning: _the black-bag disappearing act_. 

_Now_ Theo looks a little uncomfortable. He says, after a moment’s hesitation: “They asked if I was planning on staying.”

Liam feels something _intent_ snap taut in his insides. “Oh,” he says, trying to sound casual and failing _miserably_. “Well, um. Are you?” 

Theo just makes another face, but this one is more—distress, and not judgement. “I mean I,” he starts, and this time _he_ gestures a little wildly. “If I _can_ ,” he finally manages. “If they _let_ me. And, well.” 

He doesn’t keep talking but he does reach down and slide a phone out of his pocket, and then places it with a deliberate little _click_ on the counter between them; Liam had dragged him over into a corner of the kitchen. It’s not his normal phone, but an older model. A flip-phone. Liam had forgotten relics like it even _existed_ anymore. He picks it up.

“A cell phone?” Liam queries skeptically, shooting Theo a look.

“So they can track me,” Theo explains, sounding uncomfortable, but not—at the idea of being tracked. At the idea of _needing_ to be tracked, Liam thinks. At the idea of being the kind of person who other people like Argent and the Sheriff and Scott would think needed to be tracked. “If I stay I have to keep it on me at all times,” Theo continues. “But if I want to leave, I don’t have to take it with me.” 

There’s something guarded to his voice; maybe a little hopeful. Liam finds himself grinning, helpless and automatic. He taps the edge of the flip-phone against the counter, and then offers it out. When Theo takes it their fingers brush, and the contact feels electric, somehow; Liam’s skin tingling where Theo’s had brushed it.

“Is this an acceptable compromise?” Theo wonders dryly as he accepts it. “Enough that you feel like you can stop following me around now?”

“What?” Liam squawks. “Following you around?” He repeats, outraged, though that’s exactly what he’d been doing since the hospital and they both know it. “You _wish_.” Theo just rolls his eyes, and pockets the phone. 

But when Mason calls Liam’s name from the McCall living room, it’s _Theo_ who follows _Liam_ out to meet him. 

\---

“Jesus _christ_. Stop _touching_ things,” Theo snaps, and yanks the book Liam had been idly flipping through out of his hands as he shoves him aside. “I knew I shouldn’t have let you goddamn come.”

Liam just barely manages to swallow down the pathetic, _but I’m bored,_ that he wants to give voice to, and which no doubt would have come out as a whine. But he _is_ bored: he’s stood around very patiently for the last fifteen minutes while Theo has dug around his storage unit looking for whatever the hell rare-and-unique artifact whose loss decades ago Deaton had bemoaned, and which Theo—looking preemptively wary, and hesitant, like he always does when his past is willingly or not brought up—had claimed to have, but his patience is wearing thin. Not to mention, Theo’s storage unit is _interesting_ ; he’d apparently cleaned out as many of the Dread Doctors’ operating theaters as he could remember there being—which is how he’d ended up with Deaton’s coveted artifact, apparently—and as a consequence the unit is _stuffed_ with strange and outlandish looking objects.

Huffing, Liam turns away from Theo very carefully replacing the book Liam had retrieved in its place, and starts wandering away down the closest wall, his fingertips trailing in the air above—but not touching!—the stacked boxes and filing cabinets and expensively-made, weather-proof containers lining it. He can feel Theo’s eyes on his back, Theo’s suspicion coming through loud and clear, but eventually Theo goes back to what he’d been doing; probably thinking that the sooner he found whatever the hell he was looking for, the sooner he could get Liam back out of his storage unit.

Liam rolls his eyes to himself and keeps running his searching gaze over the gathered paraphernalia. Some of it is pretty immediately recognizable—books, simple wooden cabinets, occasional weather-beaten cardboard boxes eaten through enough that Liam can see the plastic-wrapped clothes inside—but some of it isn’t. There are objects that look alien, a little frightening; they remind Liam of being trapped in the Dread Doctors’ operating theater with the IV line of wolfsbane in his arm and watching, helpless, as the three of them had experimented on Hayden. 

He looks away from those things fast.

He ends up looking at one of those giant plastic tubs with the snapping, harder plastic lids. This one’s lid is slightly askew, but just barely; like someone had either been in a hurry or in something of a state when they’d closed it, and as a result hadn’t noticed that it hadn’t closed all the way. Liam glances quickly over his shoulder, but Theo is buried elbows-deep in a pile of other boxes, his head down, and so Liam very gingerly reaches forward, and snaps the lid the rest of the way off so that he can slide it aside.

He peers over the lip of the tub, curious. He’s not sure what he’d been expecting but it isn’t what he finds; a few random trinkets; a faded t-shirt with a cartoonish dog on the front, _Terrydale Middle School Bulldogs_ ; a collection of what Liam realizes with a jolt are photo albums. He’s reaching inside for the latter before he’s even thought about it.

The first album in the pile is heavy, hard-covered and thick-stocked. Liam hefts it across his left forearm and carefully runs the fingers of his right hand over the cover, wondering. It isn’t one of those albums with a picture on the front, and it doesn’t have a label. If Liam wants to know what it contains he’s going to have to open it, so he does, flipping the front cover—unwieldy, he nearly smacks himself in the face—over and resting it on his bicep.

There are photos of a grinning family inside. There are photos of a grinning _Theo_ inside.

A younger Theo, certainly. Maybe ten or eleven; Liam can’t guesstimate kids’ ages for shit. At first Liam thinks—the thought jarring enough as-is—that the photo must be of the Raekens, but then he squints, and realizes: Theo’s surrounded on either side by two boys. The Raeken’s had only had one son and a _daughter_. Liam stares.

And then he jumps with a surprised shout when the album is suddenly ripped out of his hands. He glances a little wildly up at Theo, his heart going about a mile a minute, and then he pales; the look on Theo’s face is _murderous_ , and Liam really knows what murderous looks like on Theo’s face, even if he hasn’t seen it in a while. 

“Theo,” he tries, through numb lips. Something uncomfortable and apologetic is already squirming in his chest.

Theo just slams the album closed, and _shoulders_ Liam away from the plastic tub so that he can replace the album inside, and jam the lid of the tub closed with extreme prejudice. There’s no doubt at all that this time it locks fully. 

“ _Theo_ ,” Liam tries again, a little more forcefully. He still sounds like he’s pleading.

But Theo just snaps, “I found the artifact Deaton wanted. Let’s go.”

Liam hustles himself out of Theo’s storage unit without Theo having to ask. It’s a shitty apology but it feels like the best he’s got, especially considering the fact that Theo so clearly doesn’t want to talk to him. He hovers on the edge of Theo’s space while Theo locks up, and when he climbs into the passenger seat of Theo’s new car—Theo’s truck finally surrendered as the gas-guzzling monstrosity that it had always been, as weird as it remained to see Theo driving a _crossover_ —he stays meek and silent on the road back to the motel. He doesn’t need Theo to say it anymore explicitly than he already had; Liam understands that he’d fucked up in some deep, indefensible kind of way.

They’d been sort of idly planning on trying out a restaurant downtown that they’d passed on the way in, but that’s out of the question, now; no way Theo wants to sit across from him in various stages of tortuously awkward quiet for however long it takes them to eat. _Liam_ wouldn’t want to sit across from himself doing that. So instead he offers—quiet, and hesitant—to run to the cafe-looking building a few blocks down, and pick up—whatever. Sandwiches and chips and whatever else Liam could grab, and which Theo may or may not actually deign to eat; he could get weird about food sometimes, though Liam had never figured out the exact contours of the thing.

“Fine, whatever,” Theo snaps, but when Liam gets back, Theo isn’t in the motel room. Liam stands in the doorway with his arms full of paper-wrapped sandwiches and sweating glass bottles and crinkling bags of chips, panic just flat-out _overwhelming_ him for an instant—did Theo _leave_ again? God, had Liam driven him to _flee_ again? He reflexively checks the room for some hint of Argent’s and the Sheriff’s flip-phone, which Theo treated almost like a religious _icon_ —but then he forces himself to stop, and take a deep breath. As he inhales he catches Theo’s scent, just fading, and he carefully sets their food down on the room’s scuffed-up desk and considers.

Probably Theo still doesn’t want to talk to him. But if nothing else Liam feels the extreme need to apologize again—not to mention to just lay _eyes_ on him again, even if he’d mostly moved past his not-at-all-unfounded paranoia—and so he sharpens his sense of smell, and goes to follow Theo’s scent trail.

It turns out Theo isn’t far. There’s a rundown park just a few streets away from the motel, and he’s sitting on top of a weatherbeaten picnic table. His elbows are braced on his knees, his feet set wide on the bench seat, and he doesn’t look at all surprised to see Liam. 

Actually surprising: Theo scooting over without a word to make room for Liam on the table, too, a silent invitation. Liam thinks _gift horses_ , very clearly, and doesn’t question it, just clambers up next to him.

“Sorry about earlier,” Theo murmurs, before Liam can. 

Liam flinches, his mouth already framing the _no, I’m the one who should be apologizing_. But the look on Theo’s face stops him; there’s something cracked, and fragile, to his careful expression, like at any moment it might break apart and leave something raw and bleeding behind. Liam shuts his mouth. Theo’s lips flicker, and he looks away.

But Liam— _god,_ he’s an idiot, and just _incapable_ of helping himself; justifying every one of Deaton’s heavy sighs, Scott and Liam sat in the humid-heavy summer air of the animal clinic with Liam trying, really _trying_ to absorb what Deaton was telling them about pack history, and the origins of the Hunter Code, and how the two intersected and diverged and came back together. Theo gives him an opening to just let the whole thing go, and instead Liam opens his mouth and asks:

“Who were they?”

Theo doesn’t even flinch. Clearly he’d expected the question, had sat here on this picnic table and prepared himself to answer it, even though he clearly doesn’t want to. Liam feels like the _worst_ kind of entitled asshole. Christ, what is _wrong_ with him?

But Theo just answers, quiet: “They were my family.” And then he flinches, inexplicably, full-bodied and rough, and he hurries to correct, “Or they were _a_ family, anyway. They were never really actually mine.”

Liam stares at him. He thinks about saying _I don’t understand_ , because he doesn’t. But this is Theo’s story to tell, or—well. Not _not_ tell, because Liam is Liam and Theo had apparently made his peace with that fact, but Liam still wants to give him the opportunity to tell it at his own pace. It seems the least he can do.

And Theo does. He explains, “The Doctors—” always the _Doctors,_ not the _Dread Doctors;_ Liam had noticed the careful distinction and hates it, _hates it,_ more than he’s hated almost anything, “—didn’t have a whole lot of use for a nine-year old. What were they going to do with some snot-nosed kid?” The question’s rhetorical, but Liam thinks bitterly anyway: _not have kidnapped him in the first place,_ but Theo’s already continuing, “They’d—find a family near where they’d set up their operating theaters, and, well.” He shrugs roughly, and reminds Liam—unnecessarily, really, Liam’s an idiot but he’s not _that_ much of an idiot: “They could _give_ memories as easily as they could take them away, so.”

“That’s horrible,” Liam says, before he can stop himself, because it _is_. Theo’s lips flicker, but there’s no humor in the expression. He shrugs again.

“They’d leave me with whatever family for however long they needed to, then come get me when they were ready to move on,” he concludes. “That was always fun,” he adds, unexpectedly, “waking up in the middle of some random house, two sets of competing memories in my head.” He shoots a look at Liam, there and then away. Liam doesn’t understand the look on his face until he pegs it as _embarrassment_. “The stuff I—went back and stole later.”

 _Why are you sorry for that?_ Liam wants to ask, but even more so than before there’s a warning on Theo’s face. He’d given Liam the answer to the question that Liam had wanted, but this part he was keeping to himself; that’s what that look means. Liam swallows, and says the only thing he can think of.

“I’m so sorry, Theo,” he half-whispers. It seems the only appropriate volume.

Theo just shrugs roughly, again, and then hops down from the picnic table: moment over, subject closed. “Did you get the food?”

There’s no way that Theo doesn’t know the answer to that question; the smell of the fresh-sliced deli meats is still clinging to Liam’s clothes. But Liam plays along, because he really does owe it to Theo to do so. “Yeah,” he answers. “Got you a Reuben, and a bag of salt and vinegar chips.”

Theo’s lips flicker, and there’s something soft—something a little shyly pleased—in the look. “Oh,” he says. “Oh, well. Thanks.”

“Real Mexican soda too,” Liam adds, because he wants the hint of that smile on Theo’s face to become wider; no longer just a suggestion of a thing but the thing itself.

And it _does;_ Theo grins, and wide enough that the corners of his eyes crinkle. Liam feels _triumphant,_ and a little heady with it. He grins helplessly back.

As they walk back to the motel, Liam keeps catching glances of Theo’s bare forearms in the late afternoon sunlight. They’re corded with muscle and lightly dusted with hair, and Liam gets the most absurd urge to _lick_ them. To put his _teeth_ in them; to see if he could taste the sunlight gilding Theo’s skin.

He looks away, flushing. He trots a little after Theo to catch up when Theo gets a few steps ahead in Liam’s distraction.

\---

Sometimes when Liam brings Theo to the diner, he plays this game with himself where he tries to guess what Theo is going to order before he orders it.

It’s usually not hard. Liam’s concluded, over the course of several close observations now, that Theo’s ordering strategy falls into one of two buckets: ordering more offbeat dishes from the sides and corners of the menu, or ordering the exact same thing every time. Liam has never asked him about it and he probably never _will_ —he can’t even imagine how that conversation would go, really, but it gives him a hot, fluttery feeling in his stomach when he imagines it—but he thinks the former has to do with Theo carefully testing out the bounds of his new freedom—not just from the Dread Doctors, but from the skinwalker prison, and his own worst instincts, and _himself_ —and the latter has to do with Theo having found one thing that he actually knows he likes; comfort food.

Today Theo has opted for an offbeat order. Liam, after only a split-second of hesitation and a glance snuck at Theo’s face, asks for a Reuben. Their waiter—a long-necked kid who Liam has _also_ concluded is carrying a torch for one or both of them—flicks their eyes between Liam and Theo, something almost a little sly on their face, and then they grin and nod and close their little spiral notebook, and turn to go put in Liam’s and Theo’s order. 

Theo had surrendered his menu to the waiter as restaurant custom dictates, but he’s replaced it with a spiral notebook of his own, which he must have dug out of Liam’s backpack when Liam wasn’t looking. He’s already flipped it open to a page filled with his deceptively-elegant looking cursive, and his eyes are running over what he’d written there while Liam’s eyes run over his face.

But soon enough Liam gets frustrated; he reaches forward and digs his fingers underneath the back cover of the notebook, and flips it closed. When Theo jerks and raises his head to glare at him, Liam meets him hairy eyeball for hairy eyeball. 

“You’ve been staring at that stuff _all day_ already,” Liam points out, though he doesn’t actually know that for a fact. But he doesn’t need to; Theo’s expression gives him away the next second. Liam grins, victorious. “Scott and Argent and everybody will call with an update on Monroe when they have it. _In the meantime_ ,” he says, deliberately jumping conversational tracks, “me and my mom and dad are going to the mountains this weekend.” He hesitates—only for a split-second, a sudden bout of nerves attacking his vocal cords—but as short as the pause had been he knows Theo had caught it. “I think you should come.”

Theo doesn’t answer right away, but his expression goes a little pinched. “Aren’t Mason and Corey going, too?” He wonders.

“You could drive yourself,” Liam argues, skipping over the part where he pretends not to know why Theo is asking. 

But Theo just skips over the _next_ part of the argument in turn, and quietly points out, “Corey would still have to spend the day with me, even if he wouldn’t be stuck in a car with me on the drive up and back.” His voice is more gentle, and self-aware, than Liam’s purposeful obtuseness really deserves. And anyway, before Liam can open his mouth to come up with some other retort, Theo is shaking himself a little and adding, “Besides, I don’t think Argent would approve of me leaving the city for that long.”

Argent’s approval: Theo’s go-to trump card. Liam scowls. “You’d be _supervised_ , or whatever.”

“Yeah,” Theo agrees, but now he sounds amused. “By _you_.” He says it like that’s its own irrefutable argument. Liam scowls deeper.

But their food arrives before he can respond. Theo looks up at their waiter as their plates are set down, all soft easy smile that crinkles up the corners of his eyes, and the shape of it just deflates Liam’s entire argument. He sighs, and drags his plate a little closer to himself as their waiter sets down a bottle of ketchup on the edge of the table, technically unasked for, before wondering if they need anything else.

“We’re good,” Theo replies, grinning again. The waiter turns away after giving Theo a mirror-grin, and as they’re walking away Theo reaches forward and nudges the bottle of ketchup a little closer to Liam. Liam ignores it for five whole seconds, and then he rolls his eyes and reaches up to snag it; the fries he’d already stuffed sullenly into his mouth calling desperately out for it.

It turns out that Theo isn’t a huge fan of the offbeat dish that he’d ordered, evidenced not by anything he says but by the microscopic grimace he gets as he forces himself to eat it anyway. Liam makes a big show of demanding to try it, his own plate ignored for the moment, and after he’s taken a big forkful, he immediately takes a second. 

“Hey,” Theo protests, because Liam’s forkfuls are _forkfuls_ ; he’d cleared a third of Theo’s plate with those two alone. Glaring, he reaches forward and snags the edge of Liam’s plate, dragging it towards himself and taking a big bite of Liam’s abandoned Reuben in revenge. 

It’s a close thing, but Liam manages to keep the butterfly-flutter feeling that starts up in his stomach from making its way onto his face as a victorious grin. Still, he stuffs more food into his mouth, just to be sure.

\---

The thing with Quentin is Liam’s fault. He hasn’t figured out how exactly, yet, but he’s _sure_ of it. After all, he’d been the one staring, frozen, when Quentin had appeared out of fucking _nowhere_ and had tackled Theo down and driven his clawed fingers into Theo’s back.

His mouth still tastes of grass and dirt in Deaton’s animal clinic, Quentin and his cronies on one side of Deaton’s mountain ash barrier—unsealed—and the scraggly remnants of the McCall pack—him and Theo, Derek and Deaton, the Sheriff and Parrish and a handful of in-the-know deputies, because the Sheriff had given up on trying to be coy a while back—on the other. Originally Liam had been afraid to touch Theo—some instinct screaming in the back of his head that sounded a lot like Theo, actually, yelling _think how it’d look_ —but Theo had kept giving off these quiet, near-subvocal pained gasps, helpless, and Liam had just ceased giving a shit what some asshole like Quentin Storo had thought; he’d dragged a chair over in front of the one that Derek had draped Theo over, and had laid a hand Theo’s neck.

Theo had managed to look up at him, his eyes hazy with pain and his mouth edged with drying, and flaking blood, and Liam had had the absurd urge to kiss him, right there in front of God and Quentin Storo and everybody; he’d wanted to lick the blood from Theo’s lips until the only redness surrounding them was the redness that Liam had put there from the friction of his tongue.

He doesn’t, of course, but he _wants_ to.

Instead he concentrates on siphoning Theo’s pain; on meeting Theo’s eyes whenever Theo seeks his out, which happens a _lot_ , like Theo was maybe worried that Liam had disappeared sometime in the interim, when the pain of the alpha wounds carved into his back becomes too much, and his eyelids flutter closed. Liam can feel Quentin’s eyes on them the whole time, and he _doesn’t care._

The whole idea of a trial had seemed like a farce when it’d first been brought up, a fantasy; like Quentin and Deaton had been speaking another _language_. But it becomes abruptly all too real when Scott and Argent arrive, trailed soon after by a bunch of werewolves Liam has known only by reputation and two hunters who look at Theo like he’s already _dead_ , and Liam can feel all the color draining out of his face. 

“Scott,” Liam calls out a few hours later, chasing after him as the entire gathered congregation that’d been in the clinic makes their way back out, towards their cars. Scott had gone with Derek, who’d hauled Theo up, and slung Theo’s arm across his shoulders; a few hours and Liam’s pain-draining aside, Theo was still weak, and stumbled every other step even with Derek’s help. 

Scott stops, and looks back at him. Liam nearly runs into him in his haste.

“Scott, you can’t seriously be,” Liam tries, low and quiet and desperate, his eyes flicking to the werewolves nowhere near far enough away _not_ to overhear them. “This is _crazy_. You can’t just let them—”

Scott looks sympathetic, but also immovable. “I don’t think I can _not_ let them,” he counters quietly; regretfully. And the worst part is, that’s probably true: Quentin is already looking at them, his eyes gleaming. Just _waiting_. 

Liam doesn’t know what to say, but he knows he has to say _something_. “He doesn’t want to _be_ that person anymore,” he whispers desperately; desperately aware that Quentin is listening. “He’s _not_ that person anymore.”

Scott just puts his hands on Liam’s shoulders, and _squeezes_. Liam doesn’t want the touch to be grounding but it is; it’s grounding. He shudders.

Scott tells him, “I know he’s not.” 

He promises, “I’m going to figure something out.”

Liam looks over Scott’s shoulder, at Theo already looking hazily back as Derek opens the back seat of the Jeep, preparing to help Theo inside. He believes Scott, he finds. 

He _has_ to believe him.

\---

The six months that Theo spends warded into one of Shohreh Khorasani’s guest bedrooms are the longest of Liam’s _life_. He wants to go see Theo, desperately, but he can’t. He also can’t _talk_ to him; Theo doesn’t have a phone, either his personal phone or the one that Argent and the Sheriff and Scott had given him, and which he always _had_ carried around religiously. 

That’d been another one of Quentin’s conditions.

He spends the six months jittery and jumpy and foul-tempered enough that eventually he has to confess what he is to his parents, just so he can explain the long complicated sequence of events that had led to Theo ending up in that room, and give them the reasons for Liam’s suddenly atrocious behavior; not a personality break, or drugs, just a supernatural bite wound and all its attendant consequences. Scott and Ms. McCall help him do the explaining and he’s never been more grateful for the both of them and the rest of the pack, arrayed around his living room like discrete parts of his own body; his nervous system; his blood and bones. 

The first thing he wants to do after is tell Theo. 

He can’t, of course, but he imagines how he’d do it. He imagines telling Theo: _my parents know now, and it’s all because of you._ Sometimes the gratitude is harder to bear than Theo’s yawning absence. 

But he doesn’t have anywhere to put any of it—the gratitude or the hard desperate knowledge of Theo’s confinement (“It’s for his own protection,” Deaton had said, and Liam had _sneered_ , because what _absolute bullshit._ “Would you prefer he’d been held pending his trial by _Quentin?_ ” Argent had finally snapped, sick to death of Liam’s attitude, and Liam had blanched and stopped acting like such an asshole to everybody, because no, he really _wouldn’t have_ ) and so what he _does,_ is direct it all towards helping Scott prepare for Theo’s—and the rest of the pack’s, really—trial.

“Scott,” he says late one night, the both of them sat across from each other at the McCall kitchen table in a single pool of light from a lamp by the far wall, old books with cracking and flaking spines left sprawled open between them, buried underneath photocopied pages of _other_ old books set in precarious stacks, and Scott so exhausted that his nose is practically _in_ his latest book. He jolts when Liam says his name, and looks up. Liam swallows.

“We should tell them about Theo’s families,” he says. “I—I think we should tell them about Theo’s families.”

Scott just squints at him. “His…families?” He repeats, clearly stumped by the plural, and it’s only then that Liam realizes—he’s telling someone else’s story. He’s telling _Theo’s_ story, and one that Theo had considered more than a story: he’d considered it a secret. Liam stares back at Scott staring at him, more than a little horrified with himself.

But: _It’ll be a panel of nine,_ Argent had explained. _Five hunter clan leaders, and four werewolf alphas._ Stiles had snorted and said, _five-four, huh? So any supernatural defendants start out screwed from the get-go._ Argent hadn’t disagreed. 

So: “Yeah,” Liam forces himself to say. “Yeah, his—his families,” and then he explains.

Scott can’t seem to find words at first, and then he finally manages to croak, “Yeah, Liam. Yeah, we’ll tell them,” and scribbles it down on the handwritten list of notes he’d started preparing.

“What about the goggles?” Malia asks, a few weeks later. She and Scott are both stumbling-slow; swollen-eyed and exhausted. They’d only gotten back from their most recent trip hunting for Monroe a few hours ago, but when Liam had showed up at the McCall-Argent condo anyway—his shoulders already hunched in and his lip already between his teeth—they’d let him in without complaint. “We should tell them about the goggles he used that one time to help me find my mother, the ones he said the Dread Doctors used to track supernaturals.”

Liam can see Scott having the same realization that he’s having; that Malia had clearly had before them. “He couldn’t have escaped,” Scott breathes. “They’d have been able to find him anywhere he—” He cuts himself off, looking a little green.

“Did he ever try?” Malia wonders. No, _asks_. She’s looking straight at Liam when she says it. “Liam. Did he ever tell you if he tried to—?”

But Liam just shakes his head. _Has_ to just shake his head. “I don’t know,” he murmurs, like a confession. “If he did, he never—” _told me_. Liam buries his fingers in his hair, and stares sightlessly down at the book spread out in front of himself. _Why didn’t he tell me?,_ he wonders. _Why didn’t I_ ask?, he thinks next. “I don’t know,” he repeats softly; helplessly.

“Well,” Malia decides. “We should tell them anyway.” 

Scott writes it down.

But Scott and Malia and Derek and Argent have the hunt for Monroe to think of, too, and so a few weeks after _that_ it’s Mason who wonders, “What about this one?,” and raises the book in his hands over his head so that Liam can grab it. 

Sat up against the headboard of his bed, Liam leans down to take it. The movement causes the edge of his hip to dig a little against the side of Mason’s head, and Liam murmurs an apology that Mason immediately waves off, Mason just shifting some to the side on the mattress and resettling. Down at the end of the bed, his head pillowed on Mason’s stomach, Corey grunts a complaint when Liam moving to take the book causes Liam’s bare toes—shoved underneath Corey’s side to keep them warm—to dig into his ribs. 

The first time Mason and Corey had invited themselves not only over to Liam’s house, but into his bedroom and onto his bed like this, Liam had been baffled. The second and third times he’d been amused, if a little irritated. 

The fourth time he’d been furious. Two days ago he’d found a shard of glass from the lamp he’d accidentally broken that day as he’d yelled at them to get out, to leave him alone, that he didn’t need them babysitting him; the shard had fallen behind his desk during Liam’s shamefaced clean-up, apparently, Mason and Corey on their knees helping him pick up the pieces, and he’d only seen it when he’d dropped his phone charger two nights ago and had to crawl underneath his desk to retrieve it. 

Now he’s lost track of how many times they’ve done this. Now he just knows that they’ve gotten good at this, this ever-shifting puzzle-piece style arrangement of fitting the three of them onto Liam’s bed, a pile of books and other research crammed into the tiny and ever-closing places between them. 

Now he just knows that he’s grateful for the warm weight of Mason’s head against his hip, for the grounding weight of Corey’s ribs atop his toes. He breathes in the warm tangled-up scent of the three of them together, and he looks at the section of the book that Mason—upside-down and oddly contorted to reach—is pointing to. 

“See? There,” Mason is saying, tapping at the page. “The Council in this case ruled in favor of the werewolf on trial.”

Liam skims the section, and grimaces. “Yeah, but the werewolf was newly bitten, and they’d attacked those people during a full moon. Theo—” _knew what he was doing_ , Liam thinks, his eyes flicking helplessly to Corey’s, “—wasn’t like that.” Corey grimaces right back, and looks away.

But he also rolls over onto his stomach the next moment, and lays out his own book between them. “I might have found something,” he offers softly.

Liam leans over, and Mason sits up, to see. Corey traces his finger down the page. 

“This werewolf’s whole pack was on trial,” Corey explains, “but the Council found after hearing all the evidence, and whatever, that the crimes were the alpha’s fault. That the betas were just trying to stay alive.” His eyes flick up to Liam’s in turn. They’re not soft, but they’re certainly not as hard as they used to be, when Corey’s efforts were more token; when he’d looked Liam straight in the eye and said, _I’m doing this for you, not for him._

Liam’s lips flicker helplessly; grateful, grateful, grateful.

“That’s good!” Mason is exclaiming, oblivious to all that. He scrambles the rest of the way upright, yanking the notebook he’d been using for notes over and into his lap as he starts writing down the book’s title, the page number; a summary of the case. “I bet Scott and the others can use that.”

But.

But: “We have her,” Scott announces less than a week after that, his voice sounding rough and scratchy through the Sheriff’s deskphone. “We have Monroe.”

The Sheriff’s office practically _explodes_ with noise. Scott had conferenced in Stiles and Lydia on his end, so when Stiles _whoops_ it sounds throughout the small space; all the supernaturals wince, but they’re also smiling too wide, and laughing too loud, to really care. 

They end up having a party. It’s not planned and it’s certainly not what anyone had intended when they’d all converged on the McCall-Argent condo, but it’s what they end up doing. Somebody orders just a massive amount of pizza and wings, and the Sheriff shows up at one point with six-packs of beer in his hands, Parrish on his heels with the same, and they all just end up eating and drinking and laughing and talking until late, like with the sudden all-consuming _absence_ of the anxiety they’d all lived with since Monroe’s escape, they had to find other things to fill up their chests, their stomachs, their _minds_ with.

It’s how Liam feels, anyway.

But it’s also the reason he’s still at the McCall-Argent condo the next morning when Scott and Malia and the others finally arrive back from where they’d been, Monroe and her followers handed off to representatives of the Council; they were headed for their own trials, just like Theo. 

_Just like Theo,_ Liam thinks, sat at the McCall-Argent kitchen table, his fingers running down the list of handwritten notes Scott had prepared. There are pages and pages of them, supplemented by pages torn out of _other_ notebooks and stapled and taped in, Mason’s handwriting mixing with Corey’s handwriting mixing with Liam’s and Scott’s and every other member of the pack who’d had an idea, or found something that might be able to help, but it suddenly doesn’t seem like _enough._

_Five-four, huh?_ Stiles had observed, _So any supernatural defendants start out screwed from the get-go,_ and Argent hadn’t disagreed. 

Liam’s throat is almost too tight to breathe through. The decorative clock Ms. McCall has set on one of the living room cabinets sounds thunderously loud in his ears as it ticks, and ticks, and ticks the remaining time before Theo’s trial away. 

“Hey,” someone suddenly greets quietly, and Liam jerks and looks up. 

His fingers wind up catching on the page as he does, and the sheet of paper rips partially out of the notebook. Liam stares at it in horror, and keeps staring at it in horror until Scott slowly reaches forward, and slides the notebook out from underneath Liam’s hands, and carefully flips it closed. He sets it aside, and looks at Liam.

Liam looks back. “What if it’s not enough?” He asks, his voice so barely more than a whisper that some of his syllables wind up almost inaudible. “What if they…?” He can’t finish the thought. He’d read all the cases. He’d seen the way most of the trials had ended.

 _So any supernatural defendants start out screwed from the get-go,_ Stiles had observed, and Argent hadn’t disagreed.

But Scott just reaches forward, and gets a hand on Liam’s shoulder. He squeezes once, and then leaves his fingertips digging into the muscle. “I have a plan, okay?” He promises. “I have something that I’m pretty sure will—”

He cuts himself off, that _pretty sure_ echoing between them. His lips flicker apologetically. Liam’s lips flicker right back. 

“I have a plan,” Scott repeats after a few seconds, his eyes locked with Liam’s. His voice is firm; true-alpha solid. 

Liam can’t speak. Even if he could find the words, his throat’s too tight.

He nods.

\---

“Scott,” Argent calls, his hand coming around Liam’s arm as Liam goes to pass him on the way to the strangely innocuous-looking barn that apparently serves as the Council’s courthouse. Argent drags Liam to a stop as he tells Scott, “Get everyone inside. We’ll catch up.”

Scott stares at Argent, clearly confused and more than a little concerned—a match for _Liam_ staring at Argent, _absolutely_ confused and _more_ than a little concerned—but then he nods, slowly, and tips his chin towards the barn doors. The rest of the pack—literally the rest of it, Stiles and Lydia back from their universities, and Ms. McCall and the Sheriff and Parrish and Deaton all there in addition to Derek and Malia and Mason and Corey—all follow his silent instruction, though not without glances traded amongst themselves. Liam feels Argent’s fingers clamped firmly, though not painfully, around his bicep, and feels something uncomfortable squirm in his chest.

Argent waits until the doors close behind the last of the pack—Liam blinking after them as he realizes there must be some kind of magic affecting the barn, because he can’t hear _anything_ inside once they do—and then he turns and uses his grip on Liam to push him just as firmly, though still not painfully, against the side of his SUV. Liam feels his back hit the cool metal and jerks, his eyes darting up to meet Argent’s reflexively.

“I need you,” Argent says once they have, “to look me in the eye, and tell me that you can handle this.”

“ _What?_ ” Liam blurts out immediately. That squirming thing in his chest squirms more, and harder, because there’s a soft nervous voice that instantly pipes up in his head that says: _I don’t know if I can_. It makes Liam angry. He snaps, “Why would you _ask me_ th—”

“Because I know how you feel about Theo,” Argent interrupts mercilessly, cutting him off.

Liam pales. “I—I don’t,” he starts to stammer, not even sure if his sentence ends _know what you’re talking about_ , or in some other way, but it doesn’t matter. Argent just gives him a disbelieving, irritated look, and snaps:

“Liam, please.”

Liam’s jaw snaps shut.

He’s still staring up at Argent. Argent is still staring down at him. Breathing in slow, and deep, and even, Argent tells him, “I need you to remember that he’s killed people.” 

Liam jerks, his brow furrowing and his mouth dropping open. 

But Argent just ruthlessly continues, “I need you to remember that he’s helped kill other people. People that those supernaturals and hunters in that courtroom loved.”

Liam’s lips have gone numb. He can’t speak, just keeps looking up at Argent in stunned silence.

Argent exhales out heavily. His expression softens, and his voice is quieter as he explains, “I need you to remember all that, because if you don’t—if you act like you’ve _been_ acting the past six months—” 

Liam _winces_ , and he tries to jerk his gaze reflexively away from Argent’s, but Argent just ducks his own head to follow so that he’s looking right back into Liam’s eyes as he concludes:

“If you act, in other words, exactly like how you feel about him, then those alphas, and those hunter clan leaders? They are going to assume that you, and Scott, and this pack, are too young, and too naive, to truly deal with someone like Theo. And they will deal with him themselves.”

Argent pauses, and searches Liam’s face.

“Do you understand?” He asks softly. It’s a genuine question, heartfelt and sympathetic. He’s not asking it to be an asshole. He’s asking it for Liam’s own sake, and Theo’s, and the pack’s. 

So, “Yes,” Liam croaks. “I understand,” he manages, because he does. 

He has to. 

\---

Except that Theo won’t look at him.

Liam had barely held it together through Monroe’s and her psychopathic lackeys’ trials. One by one they’d been judged, and one by one they’d been sentenced, and Liam had wound up putting his claws through his palms at the start of the first; couldn’t help it. Scott had started out trying to get him to stop, his own fingers digging in between Liam’s clenched tight knuckles and the flesh of his palm to try and dislodge them, but eventually he’d given up, and just started siphoning the pain from the punctures instead. His shoulder had been warm against Liam’s, and Liam had pressed harder against it; against him, and the careful fingers Scott had wrapped around his tense, aching wrist.

And it’d been satisfying, certainly. So very _satisfying_ , watching first Monroe’s lackeys and then Monroe herself batter themselves up against the Council and the cool, unsympathetic faces of the packs and gathered hunter clans, but as the hours had ticked by a cold knot of dread had started up in Liam’s stomach, because Theo was going to have to be judged by those same cool, unsympathetic faces. 

Liam had bitten through his own lip when he’d realized that.

He tries to hold on to Scott’s soft firm voice promising _I have a plan_. He leans a little harder against Scott’s shoulder against his, and twists his wrist still held gently caged by Scott’s fingers, wanting to feel the rough grounding scrape of Scott’s skin against his. He _waits_ , something like anticipation curling tighter and tighter at the base of his spine, to finally see Theo again, and for the first time in six months.

But when they bring Theo in, Theo won’t look at him.

It’s not just Liam: Theo won’t look at _anybody_. He won’t look at Quentin as Quentin takes his place across from him. He won’t look at the Council waiting to judge him. He won’t look at Scott, or at Argent, or any of the pack. 

He keeps his eyes on the ground, even as Araya Calavera’s emissary is sealing him inside an absolutely _useless_ mountain ash circle. 

Or, well. Not _absolutely_ useless: it’d keep Liam from being able to get to him, if something happened. Liam’s fingers spasm in his lap, his claws still buried in his palms.

Something in Theo’s expression spasms instantly after, like maybe he’d somehow noticed, though he _still doesn’t look at Liam_.

Where Monroe’s and her lackeys’ trials and been quick, streamlined, almost _formalities_ , Theo’s drags. And Argent had been right, outside with his fingers around Liam’s arm and Liam pressed up against his SUV: Quentin isn’t the only supernatural in the courtroom who’d lost someone that they loved to the Dread Doctors. 

But he is the _angriest._

Scott and Argent and the rest of the pack do their best, Scott with his battered notebook full of notes and even the Dread Doctors’ goggles—dug up out of one of Theo’s storage units—presented as evidence, but no matter how genuine or earnest or well-reasoned their efforts, it all suddenly seems _pointless_. Childish, even. Liam remembers what Argent had said outside about the alphas, and the clan leaders, thinking that the pack is too young, and too naive, and something _desperate_ lodges up underneath his throat, because too many of the faces looking at them—at _Theo_ —are cool, and unsympathetic. 

Liam thinks, very clearly, _they’re going to rule against him,_ and that’s when he starts yelling.

That doesn’t help things much—according to Scott it actually _hurts_ them—but it at least gets Theo to look at him. It’s just for a second, but it’s enough for Liam to see, for the first time, the full expression on Theo’s face.

It’s enough for him to realize, just as clearly: _he’s given up._

He’s so stunned that Scott and Derek actually manage to finish pulling him back into his seat. He _remains_ stunned through Quentin’s sneering rebuttal, and Araya’s pointed questions, and _Theo’s_ quiet responses, but then Quentin says, “I respectfully request the Right of Retribution,” and Liam remembers all the research he and Scott and Mason and Corey and the rest of the pack had done, and he stops breathing, because for it’s _stupidly_ grandiose title, Liam knows _exactly_ what that actually means. 

But he only stops breathing for as long as it takes him to spot the small desperate way that Theo curls in on himself, Theo’s fear and and his guilt and his _resignation_ burning like acid in Liam’s nose, his throat, and then his throat starts burning for an entirely different reason: it starts burning because he starts _yelling_ again. 

“Get him _out_ of here,” Argent snarls at Derek, and Liam thinks _no_ , and tries to dodge away from Derek as Derek reaches for him. He tries to lunge _forward_ , towards Theo still trapped in that stupid mountain ash circle and staring at him with an expression like an open _wound_ all over his face. 

But Derek gets a hold of him. Derek starts dragging him back, towards the barn doors, undeterred by the vitriol that Liam is spitting or the desperate way that Liam fights him. Over the sounds of his own furious, helpless accusations, Liam is vaguely aware of Scott making excuses for him. A part of Liam is so, so ashamed of himself— _if you act like you’ve been acting the past six months,_ Argent had warned him, then the Council would assume the pack was too young, and too naive, to deal with Theo, and here Liam is, _proving them right_ —but the rest of Liam is just a lit fuse, incandescent with rage, because Theo is still looking at him, his expression like an open wound.

And then Derek finishes dragging him out of the barn, and the doors slam closed behind them.

\---

Slamming up against the barn doors isn’t anything like slamming up against the elevator doors during the Wild Hunt had been.

For one thing, _those_ doors had been smooth metal, cool to the touch. They’d fogged up some with Liam’s breath, he’d been that close to them. These doors are wooden and weatherbeaten and rough with age, and Liam actually winds up with several splinters embedded deep in his palms when he hits them. 

For another thing: Derek hadn’t been at the hospital with the Wild Hunt. 

And it’s Derek who gets his fingers in the back of Liam’s shirt, and _hauls_ him back, and away from the doors, just as Liam is getting his hands around the handles to yank them back open. Liam’s collar bites into his neck hard enough as Derek does it that he chokes a little, but it isn’t _just_ animal instinct that has Liam whipping around, one clawed hand already outstretched and swinging.

It’s anger. It’s something that tastes horribly, _horribly_ like helplessness, and Liam really _knows_ the taste of helplessness.

But Derek just dodges effortlessly back. He lets Liam’s own momentum spin him all the way around, and then he moves quickly back forward to slide one of his own arms under and then _over_ Liam’s outstretched one, trapping it in the bend of his own elbow. At the same time, he presses himself up against Liam’s back and wraps his other arm around Liam’s neck, yanking Liam’s head back onto his shoulder and cutting off just _enough_ of Liam’s air to weaken some of his struggles. He keeps dragging Liam away from the doors.

“Stop,” Derek is hissing in his ear. “Liam, you have to _stop_.”

But Liam doesn’t _want_ to stop. He coils his muscles—Derek tensing a half-second too late behind him—and _rips_ himself out of Derek’s grip. He whirls around before Derek can regain his lost ground, and snarls at him.

Derek stops. He stops, and that’s the only reason that a sickening split-second of clarity bolts through Liam, and _he_ stops. He drops the shift away from his mouth and hands and eyes, horrified with himself. He brings his palms—still sticky with his _own_ blood, from his claws buried deep within them—up to cover his mouth. But. 

“He knew,” Liam whispers. “Derek, he _knew_ that was going to happen. He—he _expected—_ ” Liam staggers back a step. “The whole time he was stuck in that room in Shohreh’s… _Six months_. And the whole time he knew. He _knew—_ ”

Liam cuts himself off. He whirls back around and lunges for the doors.

Derek catches him before he can. “Liam, _stop_.”

This time Derek loops both of his arms over Liam’s shoulders, twisting his forearms down and around so that he’s clasping them together and trapping Liam’s arms behind his back as he does. Liam snarls and jerks but Derek just flows with him, and not only that: with each step Liam fails to gain forward, Derek drags him another step back.

Finally he must decide that they’re far enough away from the barn and its closed-tight doors, because he spins them around as a unit, and then _shoves_ Liam away from himself. Liam goes stumbling forward, and he’s so out-of-sorts—he’s still back in the barn as Theo had flinched and curled in on himself because _he’d known he was going to die_ —that he trips, and falls heavily onto his hands and knees onto the damp ground.

He thinks about getting back up. He stays where he is, breathing hard and fast and shallow enough that a corner of his brain that sounds exactly like his dad notes _hyperventilation_. His fingers dig into the loamy dirt.

Behind him, he can hear Derek warily approaching. He looks up, and over his shoulder. He doesn’t know what expression is on his face, but it must be _awful_ , because Derek’s spasms.

“He never had a chance, did he?” Liam wonders hoarsely. His voice cracks on _chance_. “All the—all the _research_ , and the books, and the strategies Scott and me and the pack tried to come up with. It was just. _He_ was just,” Liam laughs, suddenly, high and hysterical, “ _screwed from the get-go_.” Stiles’ words, so prophetically spoken all those months ago. “And we were just—” _too young, and too naive_ , “—the only ones who didn’t know it.”

Derek goes down to his knees, too, close enough that one of them digs into the side of Liam’s thigh. He doesn’t touch Liam otherwise, but he says, “I’m sorry, Liam,” very quietly.

But Liam doesn’t want Derek to be _sorry_. He’s sick of everyone being _sorry_. He wants them to be _angry_. Angry like he is. Angry that this—this _farce_ , this trumped-up, bullshit, prettily-presented _lie_ of a trial is treated as sacred; as unimpeachable.

As _right_.

He fingers clench even harder in the dirt. He plants his fists in the ground, and _jumps_ up, fast enough that Derek’s startled, too-late grab for him misses. “This is _wrong!_ ” He yells as he hurries backwards, back towards the barn, his voice breaking as he practically _begs_ Derek to understand. But he ends up doing it almost right over the top of Derek swearing and scrambling to his feet. “This is—it can’t happen. I’m not going to _let it_ —”

He spins back around so that he’s facing forward, and starts to _run_. He’s almost to the doors when Derek gets a hand on his arm and _yanks_ him to a stop, and hard enough that they both go down, their feet sliding in the wet, uneven dirt. Liam snarls and tries to throw Derek off him, but Derek just wrestles him flat onto his stomach, using the force of his own body weight to hold Liam down. One of Derek’s arms comes up to wrap around his head, Derek’s palm flat and bracing on his forehead. 

For a moment Liam has a terrible, _terrible_ moment of deja vu, being trapped almost exactly like this under Quentin’s cronies as Quentin had buried his clawed fingers deep in Theo’s back, and a reflexive bolt of animal _panic_ burns through him; he fights harder.

“Liam. Liam, _stop_ ,” Derek is begging, his mouth pressed up right to Liam’s ear. “This isn’t a monster for you to beat, okay? This isn’t—” Derek’s voice breaks, “It isn’t a fight you can win, okay?” Liam just struggles harder. “I’m sorry. Liam, I’m _sorry._ ”

And Liam’s mouth starts to open, though whether to respond, or just to give voice to the wounded, animal _cry_ that’s building in his ribs, pressing out all his organs, he doesn’t know. He just knows that he doesn’t get to voice whatever-it-would-have-been: the doors to the barn start to open.

Derek stiffens above him, and in a supernaturally-quick series of movements, he gets both himself and Liam yanked onto their feet. He keeps one hand clenched in the back of Liam’s shirt, twisted tight enough to be constricting Liam’s chest, a bit. He’s rigid with tension; they both are.

But it’s Scott who comes through the doors. Liam isn’t sure whether it’s surprise or something else that loosens Derek’s hold, but the second it does Liam _launches_ himself forward. Scott had clearly already been looking for him; he catches Liam as Liam nearly barrels right into him.

“Scott,” Liam begs. “Scott, this can’t happen. We have _to do_ someth—”

“I did,” Scott interrupts him, low but _forceful_. Liam’s jaw snaps shut, because the expression on Scott’s face is all wrong for someone about to attend an execution. It’s wide-eyed, tense; a little wild. “I did do something, okay? Me and Chris did,” he adds, seemingly absently as he looks down at Liam’s clothes and for the first time really seems to absorb the dirt and mud now smeared all over them. His eyes flick up over Liam’s shoulder to Derek, quizzical and concerned. Liam flinches, that same shame before breaking back over him like a wave.

But. _But._

“What do you,” Liam stutters. “What do you _mean_ , I don’t—”

But Scott just lifts his hands from Liam’s shoulders, and cups them around his face. His grip is tight, almost _bruisingly_ so. The rest of the pack is filtering out of the doors around them, forming a protective little half-circle of sorts as members of the other packs and hunter clans start filtering out, too. But Liam barely notices, because Scott uses the grip he has on Liam’s face to yank his head up, some, so that Liam is forced to stare directly into Scott’s eyes. They’re not fully red, but his irises are _outlined_ with it; burgundy and burning. 

He says, “Theo’s coming home, okay?” His fingers tighten even harder around Liam’s face. He repeats:

“Theo is coming _home_.”

\---

But Liam thinks Scott turns out to be wrong. Liam thinks Theo ends up coming back to _Beacon Hills_ , but he doesn’t come _home_.

He doesn’t realize it the first night. That night he and Theo and the rest of the pack are all so grateful and relieved—and a little shellshocked—for it to be over, that they all just pile into the Stilinski house—the McCall-Argent condo too small to fit all of them, now—in a daze, and wind up sitting around in mostly silent little clumps, and clusters, sweating bottles of mostly-forgotten sodas and bottles of water and cans of flavored seltzer in hand. They all wind up crowding close enough to each other that they end up pressed together, and even their individual groups end up constellation-connected: arms and legs and fingertips and toes stretched out—knowingly or not—to touch. 

Theo sits in the middle of it all, in the middle of the living room couch, and grins at anyone and everyone when they grin at him. He lets himself rock with it whenever anyone claps him on the shoulder, and shakes him. 

He keeps pressed up against Liam from thigh to hip to shoulder, and Liam honestly can’t remember which of them is to blame for the original proximity.

But Liam wakes up several hours later alone.

He sits bolt upright on the futon he and Theo had split. His eyes flare reflexively in the dark of the Stilinski basement, already searching and searching around the general chaos of half-packed boxes of holiday decorations and baskets of unfolded laundry and various other suburban-home detritus, but Theo is nowhere to be found. Liam’s breaths start to come fast, and shallow, and he panics, for a bare moment, that he’d imagined the whole trial. That it hadn’t happened yet. That it _had_ happened, but Scott’s plan hadn’t worked. 

That Theo had never come home.

But his hearing had reflexively sharpened along with his eyes. His instincts had sent it arrowing out, and it catches something; he shudders out a hard, gasping breath, and pushes himself—shaky with wasted adrenaline—to his feet. 

Theo turns his head sideways to look at Liam as Liam steps out onto the Stilinski porch, sliding the back door carefully back shut behind himself. Liam squints at him. He’s lying flat on his back in the grass, and as far as Liam can tell he’s _fine_ —heartbeat steady, scent easy—but that just confuses Liam _more._

“Sorry,” Theo calls softly, apparently catching his confusion. He lifts a finger, his bent elbow still resting on the earth, and points straight upwards. “It’s just, you know. I was stuck inside for six months.”

“You couldn’t see the sky,” Liam realizes, something twisting _hard_ in his chest.

Theo just quirks a smile. “I mean, I could _see_ it,” he counters easily. He lets the hand he’d had pointing upwards fall so that it comes to rest on his chest. “But it’s not really the same through a window.”

Liam bites his lip. He feels, overwhelmingly, like he’s interrupting something almost—sacred, and there’s a part of himself that’s ordering him to make his excuses and go right back inside. But he doesn’t _want_ to go back inside, not alone, and besides: Theo is still looking at him. Theo came out here to look at the sky, but now that Liam is outside Theo is looking at him instead.

Liam hesitates a few seconds longer, and then he carefully picks his way over to Theo’s side. He lowers himself down carefully, hands first and then one hip so he’s sitting, and finally back onto his back so he’s lying down. Theo turns his head from one side to the other to follow him. He quirks him another smile when Liam is fully horizontal.

He confides, so soft that Liam almost doesn’t hear him: “Not really one of the things I’d prepared myself to miss, the sky.”

Something cramps in Liam’s chest. “What did you prepare yourself to miss?” He can’t help but wonder, the words out of his mouth before he can swallow them back.

But Theo doesn’t answer, just lets his lips flicker again and his head fall back upwards, so he’s looking at the sky again. Liam pulls his bottom lip back between his teeth, and then forces himself to look up, too. 

Out in the suburbs the light pollution isn’t _terrible_ , but it’s there. But Theo doesn’t seem to mind it, his eyes roving from one pinprick star to the other. He seems to be tracing constellations; every now and then his lips will move soundlessly like he’s naming one, or the other. The third or fourth time Liam sees it happen, he realizes he’s staring again and jerks his gaze away.

In doing so, though, his whole body shifts enough that his arm brushes up against Theo’s. Theo hisses out through his teeth, this soft surprised exhalation, and Liam jumps, and starts trying to scramble up and away from him in alarm. But Theo just snaps out a hand and gets a hold of him. Liam freezes, half on his side.

“It’s not,” Theo protests, sounding a little strained. “You didn’t _hurt_ me, or.” He cuts himself off on a rough noise, and then rolls his left arm out between them, so his forearm is more clearly displayed. “The magics are just—sensitive.”

The magics of Theo’s _tattoos,_ glimmering and pitch-black against his skin, even in the dark of the night lit only by the streetlights in front of the house. Liam stares down at them. His fingertips twitch, wanting to touch. 

He curls them harder against his palms.

“It’s, um. It’s crazy to think that it’s all over now, isn’t it,” Liam stammers, his mouth moving on autopilot, the words thoughtless; a reflexive distraction. He doesn’t realize how stupid what he’d said sounds until he’s already said it. He winces.

But Theo just says, “Yeah,” after a second. “Yeah. It’s pretty—pretty crazy,” he agrees, but he looks away from Liam as he says it. 

He looks away, and brings his right hand over to cover up the tattoos as much as possible, though they spill out on either side of his palm; though the McCall stacked circles wrap around the entirety of his forearm, impossible to hide. Liam thinks, very clearly, about overlaying his own hand over the other half of the still-visible parts; about how warm Theo’s skin would be, probably. About how Theo would jolt, and look up at Liam through the same eyes he’d been using to stare up at the sky that he hadn’t known he was going to miss. 

But Liam doesn’t. Of course.

And then he loses his chance, not that he was ever going to take it: Theo plants his hands in the grass, and starts pushing himself to his feet. He dusts his palms off first on each other, and then on his thighs. “It’s, ah. It’s late. Sorry for waking you up. We should head back inside, try to get some more—”

Liam had started to scramble reflexively up after him, but he pauses halfway there, on his knees. He must look like an idiot, but. “Or,” he interrupts, a little breathily; a little frantically. “Or, you know, we could—”

He doesn’t finish right away, his mind still whirling through this idea that he’s coming up with completely on the fly. Theo tilts his head curiously, expectantly, his eyes narrowing slightly as he waits. Liam hesitates, and then scrambles the rest of his way to his feet.

“Look, just. Just wait here,” he requests, patting the air in front of Theo with both his palms. Theo gives him a strange look but Liam doesn’t exactly give him an opportunity to _refuse;_ he just whirls back around for the Stilinski house and hurries away, back inside. 

He’s back out in less than five minutes, fighting with a bundle of slippery fabric the whole way. He nearly drops the whole armful trying to navigate opening the door, but Theo is there, suddenly, and sliding it open for him. Liam shoots him a grin over the top of his comically-full arms and steps back out onto the porch. 

Theo spends a second with his hand still on the door handle, and then he slowly and silently pushes it back closed. He waits until it’s bumped gently up against the jamb—Liam can hear the quiet _thunk_ —to ask, “Are those _sleeping_ _bags?_ ”

“Uh, yeah,” Liam agrees. “Yeah, I figured we could.” He gestures out towards the grass. 

Even as he does it he can feel himself blushing, though. When the idea had first occurred to him—when he’d remembered the soft confessional way Theo had said, _not really one of the things I’d prepared myself to miss, the sky_ —he’d been absolutely sure of himself. It’d felt like a burst of divine inspiration. Now with his armful of sleeping bags that he keeps having to frantically adjust his grip on, the scrape of his nails loud against the fabric, he just feels silly. 

Young, maybe. Naive.

But there’s no graceful way for him to backtrack. How does he say _nevermind, forget it,_ and turn around with his ridiculous armful of sleeping bags and fight to get the door back open? God, his cheeks start to burn just _thinking_ about it.

But then he jumps. He jolts. Theo’s fingers brush up against his as Theo reaches out to take one of the sleeping bags, and Liam _stares_ at him. Theo’s lips flicker, a little uncertain, but he keeps tugging gently at one of them until it comes loose, and then he rolls his arms over and over to roll it into a more manageable shape. That flicker of his lips becomes a full-on smile. 

“I mean, if you’re,” he starts to say. He cuts himself off, then points out: “It’s kind of cold.”

Liam just grins, wide and helpless. “Dude, we’re _werewolves,_ ” he argues. “Or, you know. Werewolf-adjacent.” Theo snorts a little at the correction. “We’ll be fine,” Liam declares, and starts making his way back over to the grass, before he can let himself overthink it anymore.

He spends a few seconds critically eyeing the grass, looking for a section that looks like it might have the least amount of rocks or other obstructions likely to poke him in the back, and then flicks out his sleeping bag. It makes a louder _snap_ as it straightens than he’d been expecting and he winces, his gaze darting back towards the house.

Theo just comes up next to him. “They didn’t hear,” he assures Liam, and then he starts— _very deliberately,_ Liam rolling his eyes and mouthing _we’re all very impressed_ —carefully unrolling his own sleeping bag. He unrolls it right next to Liam’s, and close enough that the two are overlapping a bit. 

But he doesn’t say anything about it, and so neither does Liam. And Liam? 

He isn’t cold that night. 

\---

But the thing is, he thinks Scott ends up being wrong. 

He thinks Theo comes back to Beacon Hills, but he doesn’t come home.

It’s not obvious, not at first. Or if it _is_ obvious, the obviousness of it is covered up by other things, by misdirects; by benign circumstance. The fact that everything is going _fine_ for once, that there’s no catastrophe or baffling new enemy or _whatever_ to deal with, it pulls the wool over the pack’s collective eyes.

Or, well. Liam’s eyes, really. He’s not sure anyone else is paying as much attention as he is.

Theo moves back into the apartment that Derek had lent him. He goes back to work with the Sheriff down at the station, though this time—without _Monroe_ —it’s an actual _job_ , rather than a poorly-disguised supervised release program. At first it’s just innocuous things—filing paperwork and running errands and occasionally helping Parrish corral unruly suspects when the need arises—until the day that Theo solves a case pretty much on accident when one of the deputies leaves a file open on his desk. The job stops being so innocuous, after that.

And Theo comes to all the pack events. He brings fresh-baked pies from Emmaline’s to pack dinners and he drops meals off at the hospital for Ms. McCall when her shifts run late, and when Liam and Mason and Corey start applying to colleges, he sits with the rest of the pack and debates the merits of their various options. It helps that he knows more about the packs and hunter clans near each one than just about everyone, including sometimes Argent and Derek. 

“UC-Merced would put you pretty close to the Taylorson pack,” he points out one such night.

“Is that a bad thing?” Scott wonders, the UC-Merced website pulled up on his phone. 

Theo shrugs. “They’re a traditional bunch.”

Liam grins at him. “And christ knows we’re not.”

Theo grins back, pleased that Liam had caught his point or amused by the truth of the thing, or something. But then he looks away fast. He’d started doing that more and more, lately. He digs the heel of his right palm into his tattoos. 

He’d started doing _that_ more and more lately, too.

Liam swallows down the spike of disappointment he feels as Theo does. _He’d_ been doing _that_ more and more lately, himself.

And Liam _knows_ the twisted-up combination of it all means that he should give Theo space. Give him time to adjust. To _come back home,_ finally. But Liam doesn’t want to. But he _can’t_. Not when he was already forced to give Theo so much space for those awful six months that Theo could have _died_ —the same six months that Theo had spent _expecting_ to die—and Liam never would have known.

And besides: looking away, and touching his new tattoos, that’s always Theo’s _second_ instinct. Just like that the first night when Theo confessed to having missed the sky, his _first_ instinct is to turn towards Liam. Always.

_Always._

But Theo also always catches himself fast, and looks away, and touches his tattoos. Look towards Liam, look away from Liam, touch his tattoos. One, two, three. And then, as Liam is just starting to figure out the rhythm of the thing—as he’s starting to wonder, desperately, how to _break_ the rhythm of the thing—Liam finally starts picking up on a fourth: Theo’s scent tangling itself up, going sour and sharp.

Looking back later Liam isn’t sure if it’d always been there, and he just hadn’t noticed. Or if it came later, as Theo started to get more settled into his new life. As he’d started, Liam realizes, having more to _lose_ : his borrowed apartment, his job at the station. His place as designated pack-dinner-pie-bringer.

The way that Scott, and Argent, and Deaton, and the rest of the pack look to him now to _know things_. To help _them_ know things.

But whenever it’d shown up, and whatever its cause, once Liam starts noticing it he can’t _stop_ noticing it. He comes into a room and Theo looks at him, then looks away, then touches his tattoos, and his scent sours. One, two, three, _four._ Liam can’t pinpoint what the scent _is_ , exactly, at first. All he knows is it makes him anxious, jittery; makes the shift slouch and prickle at his skin.

 _Oh, I’m an idiot,_ Liam thinks one day, feeling the realization rise like bubbles, like carbonation, in his chest. He grins at Theo when he catches Theo sneaking a look at him and Theo grins _back,_ immediate and seemingly helpless and crinkling up his eyes at the corners. _It’s okay,_ Liam wants to tell him, even as Theo is looking away, and touching his tattoos. _It’s okay, I’m nervous, too._ He imagines pressing those exact words to Theo’s lips as he presses his mouth against Theo’s, as he presses his fingertips against Theo’s marked-up skin. 

He imagines Theo pressing back, and his scent clearing. He imagines that Theo stops _looking away._

Except then one pack dinner, Theo is inside the McCall house with Mason cutting up the positively _massive_ watermelon that Stiles had brought more for the spectacle than the sustenance, and there’s an accident. The knife slips, and Mason slices the palm of his hand _wide_ open, and in the ensuing chaos—the whole pack startlingly unaccustomed, now, to dealing with human injuries, rather than instantly-healing ones—as Ms. McCall is getting Mason’s hand stabilized and wrapped for their trip to Beacon Hills Memorial, Liam catches a mouthful, multiple _lungfuls,_ of Theo’s terrified scent. 

He stands in the waiting room of the hospital later, Ms. McCall and his dad having assured everyone that Mason would be _fine, absolutely fine, the cut missed all his major tendons, okay?_ , and barely breathes through the weight of his realization as a series of dots connect themselves in his head.

On the other side of the room, his hands still covered with Mason’s blood from where he’d immediately snapped into action to try and stem the bleeding, Theo looks at Liam, then looks away, and then touches his tattoos.

But his scent can’t sour with fear, because his scent had _already_ been sour with fear.

Mason ends up being as fine as Ms. McCall and Liam’s dad had predicted he would be. The entire pack ends up having a delayed brunch the next day instead of their originally-planned dinner, catered by Argent and the Sheriff and Parrish going and picking up big pans of eggs and bacon and hash browns from the diner, during which Corey unilaterally bans Mason from ever cutting anything, ever again. 

The whole pack laughs, even Theo, who’d had to be pulled aside by Scott last night at the hospital—Liam only hearing it because he’d already been so hyper-aware of Theo to begin with—and told: _it wasn’t your fault, okay? It was a freak accident_. Theo smiles, and shakes his head a little as he does, even if both his laughter and his smile are a little strained.

And then he looks at Liam, and looks away, and touches his tattoos.

Liam doesn’t wait around to find out if his scent sours. He climbs silently to his feet, and slips out of the room, and then out of the front door. He starts walking, jamming his hands into his pockets and picking a direction pretty much at random. He tries not to think.

He ends up walking far enough that he gets to the little creek that flows through Scott’s neighborhood. There’s a bridge there connecting the two sides of the sidewalk one to the other, but instead of crossing it, Liam drops down onto it. He swings his legs over the edge and then threads his arms through the gaps of the railing, and rests his chin between them as he stares down at the sluggishly flowing water. He keeps trying not to think.

It works a little too well. He blinks and startles and hits his head on the horizontal railing above the one he’d been resting his chin on when Scott suddenly appears above him some time later. He rubs at the sting of it as he turns to grimace up at Scott, absently berating himself as he wonders how he could have just entirely _missed_ Scott walking down a perfectly straight street towards him. Scott just grimaces right back, and lowers himself carefully down next to Liam. He lets his legs dangle over the side of the little footbridge, too.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” Scott offers quietly after a half-minute or so of silence has gone by, skipping right over the part where one or both of them pretends not to know if Liam is okay. Liam flinches, and folds his arms back over the railing so that he can bury his face against them.

“He’s afraid of me,” Liam finally mumbles into the muffling weight of them. 

Scott doesn’t need him to specify, or clarify who he’s talking about. He just sighs heavily, and folds his own arms over the railing, though he doesn’t hide his face, just rests his chin on top of them. “He’s not afraid of you,” he counters quietly. Liam starts to raise his head to argue—he _knows_ what he smelled, okay, it’s not something he’d confuse with something else—but Scott just keeps going, preemptively raising his voice a little—clearly prepared to talk _over_ Liam, if necessary—as he says, “He’s afraid _for_ you.” 

He sighs again, his eyes slipping closed.

“He’s afraid for all of us, really. But I think especially for you,” he explains, turning his head on his arms so that his cheek is resting on them instead, and he’s looking at Liam through soft, sad eyes. 

It’s enough to draw Liam up short, all his indignation leaking out of him like a pricked balloon. “What?” He manages, voice sounding suddenly small. “Why would he be…? That doesn’t make any—”

“Do you remember the end of his trial?” Scott interrupts, then: “The _absolute_ end, after he’d gotten his tattoos,” he clarifies, apparently seeing Liam _remembering_ Derek dragging him out of the courthouse.

“...yeah,” Liam agrees, after a moment.

“You remember Quentin grabbing him, and saying something to him?” Scott waits for Liam to nod in affirmation, then asks, “Did anyone ever tell you what Quentin said?”

Liam shakes his head. He’d wanted to ask, but if there was _ever_ going to be a thing to make Theo look away from him, and touch his tattoos, and cause his scent to sour with fear, it was going to be bringing up _Quentin Storo_ and his thwarted revenge, and so he hadn’t. But clearly _Scott_ had, or Theo had told him, or told _someone_ who’d then told Scott, because Scott exhales out heavily again, and turns his head back forward, so his chin is once more digging into his forearms.

He tells Liam, very quietly: “Quentin threatened him. But even if he _hadn’t_ , I’m not sure it would have made any difference.” 

He closes his eyes again, only this time he squeezes them shut, his expression scrunching up as if he was in pain, or—something. His fingers curl a little harder against the railing; Liam can just see the skin of his knuckles going bloodless, and white, underneath his folded arms.

“What Chris and I did, taking responsibility for him,” Scott explains, finally, “saved his life. But it also means that…” He trails off, and swallows, before picking right back up. “It also means that if something were to happen. If, say, someone with a grudge—” he shoots Liam a sideways look, both of them clearly thinking _Quentin Storo_ even if neither of them says it, “—were to come after him, and he was forced to defend himself?”

Scott straightens up so that he’s no longer leaning on the railing, and drops his hands into his lap. He stares out at where the creek disappears around a bend, further into the neighborhood.

“If something like that happened, and Theo’s actions were misinterpreted…” He doesn’t say _deliberately_ , he doesn’t express an opinion on how _likely_ that’d be, but the possibilities hang there between them regardless, “Under the Law, now, it’d put Chris and I at risk, too.”

 _And,_ he doesn’t say, but then again he doesn’t have to: _the rest of the pack, too._

Liam stares at him for a few more seconds, soft-jawed and stunned, and then he turns so that he’s looking at the water again. He presses his mouth against his topmost forearm, his chin digging into his other forearm underneath. His heart can’t decide whether it wants to drop into his shoes or jam itself up in his throat, and the constant vacillating indecision _hurts._

 _I don’t know what to do,_ Liam thinks, very clearly, and closes his eyes.

But then they snap right back open when he feels Scott’s hand land on his shoulder in a gentle, but _firm_ , clap. “Just give him some time,” Scott advises quietly, when Liam looks automatically over at him.

 _I’ve_ been _giving him time,_ Liam wants to argue. Liam had been giving Theo _nothing_ but time, but. 

“Yeah,” Liam agrees, though it’s obvious his heart isn’t in it, because his heart’s still too busy alternating between dropping into his shoes and jamming itself up in his throat. He forces himself to swallow around it, and add, “Yeah. Right. Give him time.”

He’s not fooling anyone, least of all Scott. Still, Scott doesn’t push it, just gives him a wobbly, sympathetic smile, and pushes himself to his feet. “Come on,” he says, once he’s there, and offers Liam a hand up. 

And Liam doesn’t want to take it, but he does anyway, because he doesn’t know what else to do.

He just has no idea what to do.

\---

What Liam does is this: he gives Theo time. He gives Theo space.

He gives him so much time, and so much space, that eventually he’s forced to acknowledge a startlingly, _blindingly_ obvious truth.

“I don’t know,” Mason says, dropping down next to Liam where Liam is sitting on the edge of Mason’s bed. He’s still got a half-folded shirt in his arms to go along with the half-emptied laundry basket sat in the middle of his bedroom floor. He bites his lip as he studies Liam’s face. “Maybe it’s not what you think it is.”

“No,” Liam disagrees. “It’s exactly what I think it is.” When Mason frowns at him, Liam taps one finger against the side of his nose. “The scent’s pretty hard to mistake.”

Sighing, he drops his arm and lets himself flop backwards, so that he’s sprawled out starfish-style across Mason’s unmade mattress.

“And even if it _wasn’t_ ,” he continues, speaking more to Mason’s ceiling than to Mason himself, “there’d still be the thing where he—” Liam lifts his arms above his head, and mimes Theo’s default, nervous tic: digging the heel of his right hand against the tattoos marked permanently onto his left forearm, “—you know. He does it all the time when I’m around.”

He sighs again, and drops his arms. They land on his chest, and hard enough that he actually winds himself a little. Liam snorts at himself, bitterly amused, and closes his eyes. But he opens them back up to look at Mason when Mason makes an unsatisfied noise, his arms rolling over and over themselves in his lap, the shirt still held between them constantly looping itself over his forearms as he does. 

“He does it when you’re _not_ around, too,” Mason points out. Liam just tilts his head to raise two unimpressed eyebrows in Mason’s direction.

“Yeah, but how _often?_ ” Liam counters. 

Mason’s expression spasms, caught. “Not as often,” he admits, muttering.

Liam exhales out heavily, and then brings the heels of his own hands up to dig into his eyes as they start to burn, just a bit, with frustration and the helpless _unfairness_ of it all. “It hurts him to be around me,” Liam concludes, his voice a little thick because his throat is a little tight; he has to force the words out. It’s the first time he’s said them out loud.

“I mean, _maybe,_ ” Mason argues doggedly. “But, Liam—you _know_ that’s only because out of everyone, _you’re_ the one who he—”

“ _I’m_ the one who’d have to be a pretty _massive dick,_ ” Liam interrupts, just—not wanting to hear how Mason’s sentence ends, “to keep forcing him to be around me _anyway_ , when you know, and _I_ know, and _he_ knows—” Liam’s throat tightens further, and he really almost _isn’t_ able to force the last words out, “—that it’s easier for him not to be.”

Mason doesn’t say anything for a few seconds, and then he says, low and quiet: “I don’t think it’s that simple.”

Liam just shrugs. He doesn’t know how to explain to Mason that he’s pretty sure it _is_ that simple: that Theo got to come back to Beacon Hills, but he didn’t get to come home. Not _unchanged,_ anyway. Not—like he was before.

Not like he was with _Liam_ before.

 _Stupid,_ he thinks at himself, vicious. What had he been expecting? Of _course_ Theo had changed. He’d been _forced_ to change, in body if nothing else: the stark black of the tattoos now forever marked onto the pale skin of his forearm. _Stupid,_ he thinks at himself again, but really what he’d been was _naive._

Young, and naive.

He drops his hands away from his eyes, finally. They spot with color from the pressure, and it takes him a few blinking seconds to clear his vision, and it’s only then that he can concentrate enough on other things to realize that something is now poking him sharply in the shoulder. Grateful for the excuse not to have to look at Mason, and whatever pitying expression is no doubt on his face, Liam twists around to dig through Mason’s comforter and sheets until he pulls out the offending item. He brings it back forward so that he can hold it up over his head, and frown at it.

“Isn’t this…?” He wonders, his brow furrowing as now he _does_ look at Mason.

Mason tosses the shirt aside so that he can retrieve the book from Liam’s hands. “Yeah,” he agrees, and folds it carefully against his chest. “Deaton let me borrow it, since I’m going with Scott to the—” He cuts himself off, looking suddenly wary.

“To the next set of trials,” Liam fills in. He remembers Scott getting the invite. Deaton and Argent and Derek had all been pretty poleaxed; it was a pretty big honor. Deaton had been pretty sure it’d been the first step in the Council preparing to offer Scott one of their coveted advisor positions.

 _You’re a true alpha, Scott. The first in generations,_ Deaton had told Scott, when they’d all been gathered around in the McCall-Argent condo because Scott had wanted their opinions on whether he should accept. _That’s no small thing._

Scott had looked at Theo, for some reason, after Deaton had said that. Theo had just looked pained, and oddly ashamed of himself. He’d looked away. He’d touched his tattoos. 

But his scent hadn’t soured with fear, like it did when he’d look away from Liam.

Liam stares at the book still cradled protectively against Mason’s chest. He can feel his jaw tightening; threatening to grind. “Why are you going, anyway?” He demands, his eyes flicking up to Mason’s. It’s possible there’s some gold in them; Mason flinches when he does.

But then he seems to move right past it, and flushes instead. He unfolds his arms so that the book is tilted up, over his lap, propped up on one forearm. He runs the fingers of one hand over the cover, his eyes tracking his fingers’ progress thoughtfully. 

“I guess I just thought, you know,” he starts to explain slowly, “that if Scott _does_ get the advisor position, then he might be able to.” He cuts himself off and flushes even darker, sneaking a glance at Liam, like Liam’s maybe judging him or something. “I mean, _you_ know,” he insists. “Some of the Council’s laws are from, like, the _Middle Ages._ ”

Liam’s lips quirk, but it’s not entirely a _pleasant_ expression. “You think he can convince the Council to change them?”

Mason shrugs. “I think if anyone can, it’s Scott.”

“Right,” Liam says, snorting. “Scott.” He lets his head roll on a boneless neck, so he’s staring upwards at Mason’s ceiling again. “The _true alpha_. Of course.”

Mason frowns at him, deep and a little sharp. “What does _that_ mean?”

Liam just shakes his head, like he needs to knock the sudden cob-web-clinging threads of _whatever_ had come over him loose. “Nothing,” he says, because he really doesn’t know _what_ he’d meant. “Sorry,” he adds, at least meaning _that_. “Just—ignore me. It’s—it’s good that you’re going, that you’re going to try and help him. I’m glad you are,” he insists, at least eighty-five percent of the way to genuinely meaning it.

Mason can still hear the other fifteen percent, clearly, but because he’s _Mason_ , and Liam’s best friend, and genuinely a good person, he lets it go. He sets the book down in his lap, and looks at Liam, his eyes searching Liam’s face.

“What are you going to do about Theo?” He wonders quietly.

Liam feels his expression screw up right along with whatever’s happening in his chest. He turns his head so that he’s making a face at Mason’s ceiling rather than at Mason directly. “What do you mean, what am I going to do about Theo?” He says. “I’m not going to do _anything_.” Then, directly contradicting himself: “I’m going to—” _stop being young, and stop being naive_ , “— _let it go_ , and stop expecting a miracle.”

Mason’s face very eloquently says he thinks Liam’s making a massive mistake, but he doesn’t actually put it into words. Instead he looks back down at the book in his lap, and trails the fingers of one hand over the cover again, his mouth pursing. Liam hates the expression on his face. He hates the sour note that had invaded Mason’s scent.

He hates both of those things, and he _hates_ the quiet ache in his own chest, and so he points out, forcefully bright: “Besides, you know. You and I and Corey are headed to UCLA for orientation in, what—three weeks? It’ll be a—a _whole new world_ out there, once we do.”

Mason just rolls his eyes, but his scent clears, and his mouth curls in an amused smirk. “You’ve watched too many movies.”

“College, baby!” Liam just crows, punching a fist through the air. He even manages to carry _himself_ through on his own originally-faked enthusiasm, the excitement of it starting to bubble in his chest: maybe it _would_ be a _whole new world_ , after all.

And three weeks later, he turns out to be right: another freshman drops backwards onto the chair in front of Liam as they’re all waiting for orientation to start, her legs on either side of the seat and her arms folded over the back. She drops her chin onto her forearms, and eyes him thoughtfully. 

“You’re the true alpha’s beta,” she observes. It’s not a question.

Liam jolts, and looks quickly around, eyes wide, but no one is paying them any attention. Even Corey and Mason are off picking at the sad remains of the buffet to the side of the room, _completely_ oblivious to Liam being ambushed, here. Expression going dry, Liam looks back at the other freshman to find her grinning, clearly amused. His expression morphs into a scowl. 

“How do you know that?” He demands. 

The other freshman just smiles, and shrugs. “How could I _not?_ ” She counters, incomprehensibly. It’s only then that Liam thinks to take in a deliberate deep breath, and his eyes widen. The other freshman grins even _wider_ , and sticks out a hand. “I’m Nejla,” she offers, and lets her eyes flash just very briefly gold; briefly enough to be mistaken for a trick of the light, if someone saw and didn’t know _exactly_ what they were looking at. 

“Liam,” Liam answers, after a stunned second. 

He takes her hand.

\---

Liam is in the dining hall, bent over a growing-soggier-by-the-second bowl of cereal and his phone, when Nejla finds him. She does it by dropping down directly next to him, and close enough that their knees bang together under the table. Liam jolts hard enough to elbow his bowl of cereal, which sends milk slopping up and over the side of the bowl. He glares. Nejla grins.

“Nejla,” Matt groans in response to all this. “Light of my life. The sun in the sky. You have to be _quieter_.” The only reason either Liam or Nejla can understand him is because of their supernatural hearing; Matt’s still facedown on the table, his mouth muffled by his folded arms. 

Nejla just makes a face. “It’s not _my_ fault that you made the decision to go to the Kappa party last night.”

“It was a _five dollar entrance fee_ ,” Matt whines piteously. “They had a fun theme!”

“Yeah,” Nejla shoots back, unimpressed. “Because it was a _Thursday_ , and most people are too smart to fall for that kind of half-assed advertising.”

Matt lifts an arm and waves it dismissively through the air, then immediately groans and curls in on himself as the extra movement apparently sets off his nausea. Liam has to fight back the urge to reach forward, and siphon it off. Instead he concentrates on mopping up the milk from his bumped cereal with the crappy, apparently zero-ply napkins the dining hall provides. Beside him, Nejla leans a little harder against him, and then a little _harder_ as she apparently catches sight of the textbook on his other side. She reaches forward and over Liam and his breakfast to retrieve it.

“You’re taking Political Science this semester?” She double-checks, after she’s read the title. Her eyebrows climb slightly. “I thought you were a history major.”

“I _am_ a history major,” Liam answers, retrieving his textbook and setting it aside. “But, you know,” he flushes a little. “Scott was officially selected to be an advisor to the, uh,” he darts a look at Matt, “to the thing, so.”

Nejla doesn’t roll her eyes or otherwise mock his less-than-subtle delivery, just makes a thoughtful face. “Oh, yeah,” she agrees. “My mom told me about that. She said some of the _families—_ ” she’s much smoother in her delivery, because she clearly means _packs_ and they both know it, “—were kind of pissed about it, given how young he is, and how he’s—” she clicks her teeth together, a silent shorthand for _bitten_ , “—you know.”

Liam feels anger swell in his chest. “What? That’s _bull—_ ”

“Well don’t get mad at _me_ ,” Nejla interrupts, leaning close to him and covering one of Liam’s hands on the table with her own. Liam jolts when he realizes it’s because his claws had started to lengthen. “ _I_ don’t think any of that.”

Closing his eyes—which had flared at least _some_ , too, he can now tell—Liam turns his face into Nejla’s, his forehead against her own. “Sorry,” he breathes. “Thanks.”

Nejla just quirks a small grin—Liam can feel it against his cheek—and kisses him quickly before leaning back. She starts wrapping up the muffin she’d dropped onto the table in front of her in a napkin. 

“Anyway,” she says. “I’ve got to run to class, just stopped by for breakfast.” She wiggles her now-wrapped muffin, and starts to stand.

“Hold up,” Liam hurries to say, and starts gathering up his things. “I’ll walk with you. I was _supposed_ to be meeting Corey and Mason, but clearly they—”

“They just got here,” Nejla interrupts. 

Liam frowns, thinking _how did she…?_ , but then he actually stops and forces himself to focus. _There,_ he realizes, under the almost deafening cacophony of dining-hall-chaos: Mason’s and Corey’s heartbeats, and the easy flow of their conversation. Liam opens his eyes back up, frustration twining itself around his spine. 

“How do you _do_ that?” He wonders, and his frustration must be obvious on his face or in his voice because Nejla just gives him a lopsided smile.

“Hey, you’ll get there,” she promises him gently, and leans forward to kiss him. “It just takes time, and practice.”

They both jump a little as Matt suddenly groans. He lifts his head just enough that he can glare at them through red, swollen eyes as he digs his chin into his bracing forearms. “I swear to god,” he complains. “Like, _ninety-five_ percent of the time, I have no idea what the hell either of you are talking about.”

Nejla just gives him a cheeky grin, and leans down to ruffle his hair. Matt makes a scalded-cat noise in response and curls away from it, and then _keeps_ curling to the point that he tips sideways over onto the table’s bench seat as the first movement apparently causes his nausea to surge. Nejla rolls her eyes and shakes her head slightly, then turns back to Liam. 

“See you tonight?” She asks, and then takes off for the exit at a jog when he agrees. 

But finding her at the Delta Rho house that night turns out to be an ordeal. The house is packed to the _gills_ , since DR is the only supernatural frat on campus and is therefore almost _always_ a shitshow as all of UCLA’s various supernatural students try to cram inside. Luckily one of Nejla’s older cousins is a brother and actually _lives_ in the house: he’d given Liam permission to come in through his window, so Liam could avoid most of the chaos. Mason and Corey he leaves to the tender mercies of the already wolfsbane-drunk were-coyotes guarding the front door.

“Dunbar!” A few people crow at him as he makes his way out of Armin’s room and down towards the party on the first floor; Liam flicks his hand in a wave, and occasionally yells back, “Any of you seen Nejla?” They haven’t, of course, so Liam keeps searching.

He’s just checked the dining room—currently turned into the spot of a raging beer pong tournament, the bite of the wolfsbane it's all laced with sharp in the air—and is about to head into the kitchen when he stops dead, his hearing reflexively sharpening.

“I still can’t believe the Council selected _McCall_ to fill Chartas’ position as advisor. What the hell were they _thinking?_ ” It doesn’t take Liam long to place the voice. It’s Jonas Partlett, his _goddamn_ PoliSci TA. 

Liam feels his jaw clench. 

“He’s a true alpha, dude,” someone else returns. There’s a series of _clinks_ as that someone opens up the fridge, pulls something out, and closes it again. “Of _course_ they were going to select him.”

“Yeah,” Jonas complains. “I _guess_. But c’mon. He’s got that, that—” Liam can hear Jonas snapping his fingers, clearly trying to think of the word, “—what’s he called?”

“Chimera,” his friend answers.

“Right, chimera,” Jonas agrees. “He’s got that chimera in his pack, the one who’s responsible for the murder of that Storo pack member. And McCall _took responsibility_ for him. I mean, come on. What’s that say about McCall’s _judge—_ ”

“Hey,” someone suddenly says, low and urgent, from right in front of Liam. “Hey, hey, hey. Come on, you’ve got to calm down.”

Liam jolts, and looks at Nejla. She’s standing right in front of him, which he’d somehow missed, and she’s got both her hands wrapped around _his_ hands, which are clawed and curled into fists and shaking a little. Nejla steps a little closer to him, hiding their gathered hands between their bodies. 

“It’s okay,” she murmurs. “It’s okay. Just breathe.”

Liam’s fangs are cutting into his gums, his teeth are so tightly clenched, and his eyes are _burning_ from the flare of the shift. He stares back at Nejla through them, and thinks that he doesn’t _want_ to breathe. He doesn’t _want_ to calm down. He wants to storm into the kitchen and shove Jonas fucking Partlett up against a wall, and warn him against running his mouth about shit that he _doesn’t understand._

Instead he grimaces, and squeezes his eyes closed, and tries to do exactly what Nejla had _requested_ , not ordered: he tries to calm down, he tries to breathe. It gets easier when Nejla raises their tangled-together hands, and presses Liam’s to her sternum, right over her heart, so that Liam can _feel_ her steady heartbeat, and the way her lungs fill up, and empty out: in for three, out for three. He tries to match his own heart, and his own lungs, to hers.

“You okay?” Nejla murmurs a minute or so later, quiet and secret between them. Liam forces himself to nod, though he’s _not_. Though he had at least managed to drop the shift. Nejla exhales out heavily and presses her temple to his, and then she raises her voice, and says, “Ignore Jonas and Landon. They don’t know _what_ the hell they’re talking about. They just think that having a _quarter_ of a PoliSci master’s degree makes them fucking _Machiavelli_.”

Jonas and apparently-Landon pop up in the doorway of the kitchen, notice Liam—apparently for the first time—and both blanch. “Sorry, Beta Dunbar,” Landon murmurs, purposefully using the formal honorific and—to his credit—looking genuinely shamefaced. Jonas just grimaces, but he doesn’t look particularly _sorry_. 

Nejla just glares at both of them, and then rolls her eyes, unimpressed, and grabs Liam’s wrist. “Come on,” she tells him. “Let’s get out of this self-satisfied _circle-jerk._ ”

She swipes a full pitcher of aconite-laced beer on the way out, and snarls—full-on fanged-mouth snarls, with her eyes flaring and everything—when the Delta Rho brother who’d previously been holding it tries to protest. He holds up his hands in clear surrender. Nejla just keeps glaring at him, and snags two red plastic cups from a nearby table, too.

She and Liam wind up at a park not too far away from the Delta Rho house. Nejla pours him a cup of aconite-laced beer, and shoves it into his hands. 

“They don’t—they don’t understand _shit_ ,” Liam slurs, three cups and sometime later, he and Nejla flat on their backs in the grass with Liam’s head on her stomach. Nejla hums sympathetically, and keeps running her fingers through his hair; Liam shivers some and turns into the touch, which has the effect of turning his face—hot from the aconite-laced alcohol—against her belly. His fangs are extended; he can tell. 

And apparently so can Nejla: she strokes a finger over and then _between_ his lips, the very tip of it tracing over one of his fangs. “You bitten wolves,” she laughs, low and quiet and not at all unkind, just amused, “always leaving the shift hanging out.”

Liam nips at her finger in response. “Well, not all of us could be _born_ wolves,” he drawls, even as something bitter bites at him at the thought. Nejla just laughs, and curls over him to kiss him. 

It’s as she’s still curled over him that she tells him, “Seriously, just ignore them. They’re from one of the most like, old-school, sheltered packs in existence. They really _don’t_ know shit about what you and Scott and your friend Theo have all been through.”

 _My friend Theo_ , Liam thinks, the phrase hurting him for some reason that his sluggish brain can’t pinpoint. He stares up at Nejla. He tells her, his voice _aching_ a little with sincerity: “I think you’d like him. Theo, I mean.”

“I think I would,” Nejla agrees, stroking a gentle palm back over his forehead, smoothing back his somewhat-sweaty hair. “I hope I get to meet him someday.”

“Yeah,” Liam agrees right back, though the image of Nejla and Theo side-by-side sets something to squirming in his chest; something that isn’t exactly comfortable. He pushes it away, too drunk and too— _whatever_ , to try and deal with it. “Yeah, me too.”

\---

She gets her chance.

The packs that oversee the UCLA campus have a homecoming-like type event every year a few weeks before the end of the school year. It’s meant for the supernatural students but it’s _also_ meant for their broader packs, too: a peace summit. A cultural exchange, of sorts.

A really good excuse for a bunch of packs to get together and throw a really, _really_ big party.

Liam and Mason and Corey meet Scott and the others outside the hotel they’d all reserved rooms at, on the edge of campus. Walking up, he can see Scott’s Jeep and the Sheriff’s cruiser and Argent’s hulking SUV and Lydia’s sensible sedan all in the hotel’s parking lot, and he starts ticking pack members off his mental list as he spots each: Malia had probably ridden with Scott, Ms. McCall with Argent, and Derek and Stiles had met Lydia in Boston and they’d all flown back together, so the former two had probably come with her. He lets his eyes keep drifting over the rest of the parking lot as he does, absent-minded as he trails along after Mason and Corey, and then he nearly trips over his own feet when he spots a certain truck parked a few spots down. 

“No way,” he breathes, before he can stop himself, and breaks off from Mason and Corey to start jogging towards it. He ignores them yelling confusedly after him.

Theo’s just in the process of pulling out a beat-up duffel bag from his backseat when Liam reaches him. He’d used his _left_ hand; it puts the tattoos on his forearm on stark display. Liam drags his attention away from them, and up to Theo’s face.

“Hey,” he greets, once he has. He jams his hands in his pockets, and scuffs the toe of one shoe against the asphalt of the parking lot. “I didn’t think you were coming.”

Theo had frozen in the middle of pulling his bag out when he’d caught sight of Liam approaching him. He grimaces, now, and finishes yanking it out, and palming the door closed, as he admits, voice quiet: “I wasn’t planning on it, but—”

“But he’s a member of this pack,” someone interrupts firmly from behind Liam. Liam _jumps,_ and twists around to look at Scott, feeling his heartbeat jam up under his throat. “And it’s time that we _all_ ,” Scott adds, his gaze and voice hardening as he looks—directly at Theo, whose expression tightens some and who looks away, “start acting like it.”

Liam stares back and forth between the two of them, before finally landing once more on Theo. Theo meets his eyes for a whole two seconds, and then he looks away from Liam, too. He’s still holding his duffel bag in his left hand, which means his right palm is free to reach over and rub at his tattoos; Liam can hear the steady _rasp_ of his skin sliding together. This time it’s _Liam_ who looks away from him, throat working.

“Well, uh. Well the venue’s a bit of a hike away, so,” Liam eventually manages. “So we should probably get going soon.”

They do end up getting going, for certain definitions of the word ‘soon.’ Everyone finishes getting their bags locked away in their rooms, but they still lose about an hour as various people claim to need to shower, or change, or both, and so Liam starts out camped out in Scott and Malia’s room while waiting. Mason joins him, though Corey doesn’t, and that fact confuses Liam until the second Mason opens his mouth and just an incomprehensible _torrent_ of words pour out, all of which Scott apparently understands. It takes Liam an embarrassing amount of time to realize that they’re discussing the latest set of upcoming trials to be overseen by the Council. 

Rolling his eyes—and sharing a longsuffering look with Malia—Liam leaves them to it, and wanders off down the hallway towards some of the other pack members’ rooms. 

Corey had taken refuge in Lydia’s and Stiles’ and Derek’s room, apparently; Liam can hear him and Stiles talking about something as he passes, the door left cracked with the swinging metal latch in between it and the jamb to hold it open. Liam considers joining them for a second, and then he keeps walking. 

Theo’s room door is closed, unsurprisingly, but he pulls it open after only a few seconds’ delay when Liam knocks. 

“Hey,” he greets, clearly surprised.

“Hey,” Liam echoes, then shrugs in the face of Theo’s confused stare. “Mason and Scott have gone like, full _A Few Good Men_ , so.”

Theo’s lips switch, and he snorts a quiet laugh under his breath. He also steps back, pulling the door open further to make room for Liam to pass him as he does. Liam hesitates just a second, and then takes the clear invitation, and comes inside. 

The room looks practically untouched; Theo had set his duffel bag on the dresser by the TV, but that’s _it_. Liam forces himself to ignore the weird, twisting feeling he gets in his chest when he realizes, and just snags a pillow from the pile at the top of the room’s bed as he drops down onto the edge of the mattress. He pulls the pillow into his lap, squeezing it a bit as he exhales out, and looks back up at Theo. 

“So Scott made you come, huh?” He wonders, and in his attempt to make his voice sound completely neutral, and uninvested, he manages to sound just painfully dull, and affectless, instead.

Theo had let the door swing closed behind Liam, and had started taking a few steps forward, deeper into the room, but he freezes at Liam’s question. It leaves him hovering awkwardly in the middle of the room. 

He says, “It’s not that I didn’t want to,” very quietly; at least a little bit a protest.

Liam snorts lightly, but it’s a bitter sound. “You just didn’t think it’d be a good idea,” he interprets. 

“It _isn’t_ a good idea,” Theo insists, frustration creeping into his voice, “but.” He sucks in a deep breath, and exhales it back out. “But it’s Scott, so.”

“So,” Liam agrees, more than a little flatly. 

Theo winces. Liam squeezes the pillow in his lap a little harder. 

He asks, before he can think better of it: “Can I ride with you to the venue?”

Theo’s eyes widen, and his expression goes slack and soft with surprise, but he doesn’t say _no._

The venue is already _packed_ when they get there. The packs who’d organized the event had deliberately booked the entirety of the farm-turned-event-center with the understanding that it’d be filled to the brim with supernaturals and supernatural-adjacents, with all the complications that that implies; even as Liam is hopping down from Theo’s truck, he’s seeing the flared eyes and occasional flashes of fang as the various packs mix, and mingle. Scott comes up behind him and throws an arm around his shoulders as he stands watching it all, and shakes him a little bit as he does. Liam can’t help grinning up at him, Scott grinning back, and then they all head as one clump—as _the McCall pack_ —towards the main building.

Liam loses track of everyone throughout the night. 

Scott’s position as Council advisor means he’s decently well-known, now; he keeps getting pulled into conversations with various alphas, and pulling Malia into them right along with him. Or trying to, anyway: she gets sick of it pretty fast, and wanders off to go find Stiles, who’s clustered away with Lydia and Derek and a mixed-bag of members from other packs who Derek knows from his childhood. Mason and Corey find some of theirs and Liam’s shared classmates.

Liam finds Nejla.

“Hey!” She calls when he does, reeling him in with an arm around his neck and pressing a smacking kiss to his cheek. “I’ve been looking for you, huh?”

“Here I am,” he replies, grinning, and then grinning _wider_ when she rolls her eyes. But then she turns, and starts introducing him to the people she’d been talking to. 

But even as he’s reaching out to shake hands, and then remembering and quickly changing it to _clasping forearms_ , he can’t help seeking out Theo over Nejla’s far shoulder. He’s still with Argent, like he had been all night, hovering close to him and Ms. McCall and the Sheriff and just—as far as Liam can tell—trying to stay as unobtrusive as possible. 

It isn’t working. Liam keeps catching parts of bitten-off whispers, keeps seeing eyes set in tight, narrow expressions drop to Theo’s tattooed forearm. 

Liam turns his face into the side of Nejla’s, and forces himself to stop looking.

And thank christ for Nejla, really. She drags him all around the venue, introducing him to childhood friends from packs he’s never met, and occasionally stealing him bottles of wolfsbane-laced alcohol to drink, her smile going liquid and sly and pleased; pleased enough that he has to push her back into the shadows at one point, and do his best to kiss it off her mouth. 

They come back from that particular interlude and get almost immediately sucked into a raucous conversation—or more like _several_ conversations—happening around the venue’s giant fire pit. Mason and Corey are there, as are most of the younger UCLA students, and Liam can honestly barely hear himself _think_ over the cacophony. But he’s loose-limbed and easy enough from the wolfsbane-laced alcohol that he just laughs and lets himself sink into it, Nejla finding a free chair and dragging him down into it with her.

But almost the second he does, Cassidy—born wolf, he’d met her in his eight a.m. biology lab and they’d bonded over their shared hatred of UCLA’s sadistic class scheduling policies—makes a disgusted noise. Liam frowns, prepared to be insulted, but then he realizes that Cassidy isn’t looking at him.

But she is looking at _Theo_. 

Now Liam’s _really_ prepared to be mad, except—oblivious to all this—Cassidy says, “Ugh, what is my dad _doing?_ You should go rescue your friend before my dad like, kidnaps him to consummate their ridiculous bromance.”

“What?” Liam manages, all kinds of gears grinding in his head as he tries to switch tracks.

Cassidy rolls her eyes, and jerks her chin at where—at where Theo is in fact talking to an older man who must be Cassidy’s father, Theo finally having broken off—or having _been_ broken off—from Argent. Theo is listening intently as Cassidy’s father talks animatedly at him, and then all at once he laughs, loud and helpless and with the ease of it just taking over his whole face. Liam _stares_.

“How does your dad even _know_ Theo?” Liam demands. He’s definitely asking too intently, but Cassidy doesn’t seem to notice his tone.

She shrugs. “There was a territory dispute with one of our neighboring packs earlier this year. He showed up with McCall and another Council member to help resolve it, because it turned out he had like, a super old map that showed the original boundary?” She shrugs again. “The territory thing was solved pretty fast, but it turns out your friend is like, a walking encyclopedia of obscure supernatural trivia, and my dad couldn’t get enough.” She looks back at her father and Theo again, and makes another disgusted noise. “Still can’t, apparently.”

That _super old map_ had _definitely_ been a Dread Doctors relic. _Huh,_ Liam thinks, staring at Theo. He must sense the attention, because he looks over. Liam nearly goes to look away, except that Theo _doesn’t_ ; he smiles at Liam instead, just this tiny quirked corner of his mouth. 

Liam’s throat goes dry.

“That’s your friend, right?” Nejla suddenly asks, and when Liam jerks and turns to face her, she’s looking where he’d been looking; she’s looking at Theo. She tilts her head slightly. “That’s Theo?”

“Yeah,” Liam barely manages.

Nejla’s lips purse thoughtfully, and then—before Liam can realize what she’s doing and stop her—she cups both hands around her mouth and bellows, “ _Hey, Theo, c’mere!_ ”

Liam flails and claws a bit at his own face with his—thankfully _unclawed_ —fingertips. “What are you _doing?_ ” He hisses, but Nejla just shoves his head away, and waves frantically at Theo when Theo turns to look at her, staring through a poleaxed expression.

But after a second’s hesitation, he murmurs something to Cassidy’s father, and starts making his way over. He stops at the edge of the fire pit, just a few feet away from Liam’s and Nejla’s shared chair.

“Hi,” he greets haltingly when he gets there, his eyes flicking from Nejla to Liam and back again. “You, uh. You called?”

Nejla ignores Liam still flustered by her side, and _beams_ up at Theo. “You’re Theo,” she observes—same kind of trick she pulled on Liam during orientation—and offers out a forearm. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Theo winces; apparently can’t stop himself. “Yeah, in this crowd, I—bet you have,” he agrees, and takes her forearm. She’d offered her right so he’d given her _his_ right, leaving his left down by his side. He twists his left wrist some, a seemingly nervous, helpless movement, but he doesn’t try to hide the stark black tattoos just above it.

But Nejla—Nejla just blows right past the subtext. She loops an arm over Liam’s shoulders, and _yanks_ him in, so that he half-falls into her lap. “Oh yeah, this guy has told me some _pretty crazy_ stories about what you two used to get up to,” she says, deliberately misunderstanding that same subtext. Liam could honestly _kiss her_ for it. She continues, squinting and shrewd: “Did you two _really_ fight a bunch of Ghost Riders in a hospital?”

They have more of an audience, now; others from around the fire pit overhearing and listening in, curious. Theo looks a little startled by the attention—a little rattled—but then he swallows, and replies, “I mean, _that_ part’s true. It’s probably the details where Liam here took some _creative license_.” 

He grins right at Liam, doesn’t even try to hide it. Liam feels something in his chest just _take flight_ , even as he’s making a scalded-cat noise in protest at Theo’s _blatant character assassination_ , and defending his honor. But there’s no way to do it without telling the full story, so he ends up—with the help of Theo, and Corey and Mason, too—recounting the Wild Hunt’s visit to Beacon Hills. Without doubt some of the other gathered packs think they’re bullshitting, but Liam doesn’t care: Theo’s _there_ , and still grinning at him, the two of them playing off each other as well as they ever have.

“Being the bait!” Liam crows eventually, a little wild with it. “Three _years_ and I still have no idea what that bullshit was about!” 

Nejla is practically turtled up, she’s laughing so hard. Corey and Mason are just as bad, leaning against each other with their laughter almost _silent._ Liam just grins and grins and grins at Theo, who grins right back. Liam’s lightheaded with it. He’s not thinking clearly. 

“I have to go to the bathroom,” he announces, not realizing the _huge_ strategic mistake he’s making, and gets up on slightly-wobbly feet—still a little drunk—to start heading that direction.

“Thanks for letting us know,” Nejla laughs, nudging him in the back of the leg with one sandal-clad foot. Liam makes a face, knocking it away and grinning one last time at Theo, and then he goes to find the bathroom.

Except when he comes out—feeling pretty good about things, really; feeling lit up from the inside-out with the way that through their whole story Theo hadn’t looked away from him _once_ , hadn’t touched his tattoos _once_ —Theo isn’t with Nejla anymore. He’s _nowhere_ that Liam can see, at least until he looks off towards the edge of the venue, and sees Scott and Theo talking. Liam’s hearing sharpens without his conscious say-so.

“Theo, come on,” Scott is protesting, but quietly. 

“You’ve made your point, Scott,” Theo counters, just as quiet but _firm_. “Don’t push it past its breaking point.” 

“I think you’re being overly cautious,” Scott tells him bluntly.

“Better than the alternative,” Theo shoots back, and even from as far away as they are, Liam can see them both thinking the same thing that Liam, himself, immediately thinks: _Quentin Storo_. Scott sighs, and lets his head drop low on a boneless neck for a few seconds before he pulls it back up, and then pulls Theo into a quick embrace.

“Fine,” Scott tells him, letting him go. “We’ll see you back at the hotel.”

Theo turns to leave, and Scott turns to return to the party. Liam jolts backwards, back into the shadows of the venue’s main building, and waits until Scott’s disappeared back into a crowd of tipsy partygoers to slip out of them.

He catches Theo on the main road leading into the venue, where most of the pack had had to park given the crowds. He calls, “Honestly I’m just surprised you lasted this long.” 

All the bubbly, lightheaded amusement is gone from his chest, his thoughts. In its place is something roiling and sharp and _clawed_.

Theo jumps a little in surprise, and turns to stare back at him. Liam feels his jaw clench. Theo looks at him, and then he looks away.

He touches his tattoos.

“I’ve got an early morning,” Theo tries to deflect. “I’m heading to Yreka, Shohreh wanted—”

Liam doesn’t give him a chance to finish. “I heard what you said to Scott.” Theo’s jaw snaps shut. “But thank you for the attempted lie.”

Theo flinches. “Liam—”

“I saw the looks, too,” Liam tells him. “I heard some of the whispers.” Theo’s shoulders start to hunch, and Liam feels his jaw clench _harder._ “They may be assholes, but _you’re_ the one proving them right.”

 _That_ gets Theo’s attention. “ _What?_ ” He demands. “What the hell does _that—_ ”

“This!” Liam insists, gesturing to Theo and Theo’s keys and Theo’s truck that he’d been so determined to get to. “Running away like this! Acting like—like _exactly_ the kind of pariah that they’ve already painted you as.”

Theo recoils when Liam says _pariah_ , but he rallies fast, shaking his head and scoffing. “Right, of course,” he says. “Three-quarters of a single year of college and now you’re an expert.” He looks back at Liam, and his expression is sharp-edged and _mean_. “Alright then, _ambassador_ ,” he sneers. “You tell me—what’s my alternative?”

Liam just stands his ground, refusing to be cowed by Theo’s cutting tone or his derisive expression or the way that he’s _bleeding_ disdain. He says, “You prove them _wrong_. You _stick around,_ make them accept that you’re more than—than just _those_ fucking things.” Liam gestures sharply towards Theo’s tattoos.

Theo glances down when he does, and that’s when Liam realizes his _second_ strategic error. The second Theo catches sight of his tattoos his sharp expression and air of scornful dismissal just cracks and crumbles away, and his whole _presence_ seems to slump. He brings up his right hand, and digs the heel of his palm against the stark black marks. He closes his eyes, and exhales out low and heavy.

“It’s a nice thought,” he finally murmurs, but he sounds—already defeated. Liam stares at him, something in his chest— _it’s why you get angry when you get afraid_ —twisting and snarling and _furious_. 

“You’re not even going to _try_ , are you,” Liam accuses, not a question. “You’re just going to—to give up, like you apparently give up on _everything_.”

Theo’s head snaps up. Now he looks _raw_ , in addition to defeated: “What?” He demands. “Liam, what does that—”

But Liam had realized his mistake the second the words had left his mouth. What was he possibly going to say? _Like you apparently gave up on_ me _?_ He shakes his head, a little wildly. He takes a step back.

He says, “Forget it,” and starts to turn around, just as desperate now to get away from Theo as he had been to _find_ him, earlier.

But: “Liam!” Theo calls, and Liam can’t keep himself from stopping. He _can_ keep himself from fully turning back around, though, and only allows himself to twist his head a little backwards, instead. 

Theo’s expression is cracked open, right down the middle. Liam feels his breath hitch in his chest, wondering, _wondering_ , but after a few seconds Theo just blinks several times, and looks away. The fingers of his right hand play over his tattoos. 

He sighs, and drags his gaze back up to Liam’s as he says, “It was good seeing you.” It’s clear he means it.

Liam feels his expression spasm, and threaten to crack just like Theo’s. He whips back around, and doesn’t answer. Theo doesn’t call him back again as Liam walks away.

But the path he takes has him cutting through some of the woods surrounding the venue. It’s as he’s making his way back through the trees, hands up to keep branches from snapping back into his face, that he overhears someone say _McCall_. He stiffens, and then he hears the _rest_ of what they have to say, and he can feel his eyes immediately flare, and his mouth fill with fangs.

It turns out that Theo has to come _back_ , that night. It takes him and Scott and Argent the rest of the night to clean up the resulting mess that Liam creates, both literal and metaphorical.

\---

The rooftop deck on top of Derek’s building doesn’t technically open until nine during the summer, but that’s the benefit of knowing the owner: Liam breaks into the main office and steals the key, leaving a note in its place in the unlikely event that Derek notices and the even _more_ unlikelyevent that he decides he cares.

He sprawls out along one of the lounge chairs positioned to the side of the covered pool once he gets up to it, and lets the early morning breeze wash over him. His hair flies into his face; _christ_ he needs a haircut. Pushing it irritatedly back, and away from his eyes and nose and mouth, Liam stops, his arms still bent back by his head, and winds up staring up at the steadily-brightening sky. It’s pale orange and pink, the blue just starting to seep in at the edges, and it soothes something ragged in his chest. He exhales out the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, and lets his arms fall bonelessly and crookedly over his head. 

He spends maybe twenty minutes like that before he hears the door onto the deck from the stairwell creak open. He jolts and starts to sit up, adrenaline flooding his limbs, but then his senses—his eyes _last_ in line, his nose and ears recognizing the scent and heartbeat first—clock who it is, and so instead he rolls his eyes, and huffs out a harsh sound, and collapses back down. The cushion on the lounge chair isn’t really meant for the rough treatment: the back of his head hits hard enough to sting.

“What are you doing here?” He calls, and he can hear the irritation thick in his own voice. Liam tells himself it’s because of his throbbing skull, but lying to himself was never really a skill he’d ever quite mastered.

Theo just calls back, “I mean, I live here. If anyone should be asking that question, it should probably be _me_ asking _you_.” 

He’d kept walking as he’d spoken, so by the time he finishes, he’s standing over Liam. Liam stares up at him. He’s limned in the early morning light and his expression and the slope of his shoulders are both easy, undisturbed by Liam’s relative hostility. Something in Liam’s chest clenches. He feels his face screw up. 

Theo’s expression gets a little less easy. “You okay?” He probes quietly.

“Fine,” Liam bites off shortly. He jerks his gaze away from Theo’s, turning it sideways so he’s looking out over the spread of Beacon Hills below. 

He still hears it when Theo swallows a sigh, though. He squeezes his eyes shut, half expecting Theo to just turn right back around and leave, but.

But instead Theo just drops down onto the lounge chair next to him. He must experience the same realization with the cushions that Liam had, because he makes a small noise like his tailbone had received more of a shock than he’d been expecting. Liam feels his lips twitch, and some of the tight, achy feeling in his chest start to relax.

At least until Theo says, “Well, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but your drive is probably _not_ going to be fine. You should have left like, two _hours_ ago if you wanted to avoid the traffic on the way to—”

“I’m not going,” Liam interrupts, cutting him off. He looks at Theo just in time to see Theo blink, clearly thrown. His jaw clenches. He tells Theo, “I’m not going. Not much point now, considering me and Nejla broke up.”

Now Theo _stiffens_. “Oh,” he says, clearly reflexive. “Oh, shit, Liam.” His expression twists a little out of its surprised blank, and he adds, “Sorry, man.”

Liam finds himself amused in spite of himself. “Really? That’s it?” He tilts his head a little more, squints at Theo. “You’re not going to ask me why?”

Theo just works his jaw from side-to-side a little, his lips pursed in a thoughtful moue. He wonders, “Do you actually _want_ to tell me?,” a little hesitantly.

All the amusement that had bubbled up in Liam’s chest pops all at once, leaving behind a hollow. He _yanks_ his attention away from Theo’s again, fixing his gaze back on the horizon. Theo’s chair creaks, like he’d shifted on it. He doesn’t sigh again but Liam guesses that’s because he’d deliberately stopped himself. There’s a few seconds of silence, and then another, _louder_ creak, and Liam experiences a sudden burst of panic that Theo’s about to _stand_ , about to _leave_ , and he looks back over at Theo as he blurts out:

“What about you, huh? I thought _you_ had that thing, the—the—“ Liam trails off. He can’t actually remember what it’s called; he hadn’t been listening, not to Theo _or_ to Scott when they’d both talked about it.

But Theo just fills in, “The summit?” 

He also settles back down on his chair, and Liam feels some of his panic start to recede. Resettling his head on the cushions of the lounge chair so that he can see Theo better, Liam agrees, “Yeah. The summit. Isn’t it in like, Utah?”

“Nevada,” Theo corrects absently. “Nina’s hosting.”

Liam grins. “So it’s practically a vacation, is what you’re telling me.”

Theo rolls his eyes, and Liam feels something _triumphant_ bloom in his chest. “It’s not a _vacation_ ,” he disagrees. “It’s just being held—”

“—at a gorgeous house that backs up to one of the most beautiful lakes in the country?” Liam fills in dryly, and shells up a bit even as he’s laughing as Theo jabs him in the thigh with one booted foot.

He settles fast, though, and squints critically at Theo. 

“So?” He presses. “If _I_ was going to hit bad traffic, then _you—_ ”

Theo waves this concern away. But Liam isn’t satisfied, suddenly. He rolls over a little so that he’s propped up on an elbow, and he can study Theo more directly. 

“No, seriously,” he insists. “You’re worse than _Argent_ with his ‘ounce of preparation’ shit, why are you not already—”

“I heard your heartbeat,” he confesses, cutting Liam off. Liam’s jaw clicks shut. 

Theo shoots a glance at him, then shrugs, but his own heartbeat is pounding faster in Liam’s ears, and there’s a light dusting of color over the tops of his cheeks, and there’s no _way_ it’s from the too-low sun, still rising in the sky. He closes his eyes, and exhales out a rough breath before opening them back up. He shrugs.

He says, “Given the past few months, I figured I should come make sure you weren’t about to do anything too drastic.”

Liam catches on to what he’s—jokingly—getting at. “Oh, _ha,_ ” he returns tartly, barely summoning the effort to fake a laugh. Something twists in his chest and he drops back down, flat on his back. He barely registers the thinness of the cushion this time as he does. He glowers up at the brightening sky. “That last thing at the negotiation wasn’t my fault, and you know it. That dick hunter was looking for a fight.”

Theo just exhales roughly out. “You didn’t have to give him one,” he points out quietly, but less like an accusation and more like—a reminder. Liam feels his face screw up regardless.

“Yeah, well,” he replies, and _christ_ he sounds bitter: “Not all of us can be _you,_ Mr. Pathological Turn-the-Other-Cheek.” Liam closes his eyes, maybe so that he can’t see Theo’s resulting expression and maybe also so he doesn’t have to see _anything_. “Not all of us can be _Scott_.”

Theo doesn’t respond for long enough that Liam actually blinks open his eyes, and turns to look at him. Theo’s studying his face, lines between his brows from how furrowed they are.

“Who’s asking you to be?” He challenges quietly, though it’s not confrontational. Conversational, maybe. Like he’s genuinely _asking_. 

Liam has to look away from him, turn his gaze back to the sky. _Nejla,_ he answers silently, remembering the way she’d dropped down into the chair in front of him at orientation and said: _you’re the true alpha’s beta._ All of the packs and clans at the negotiation where Liam had gotten into the fight with the dick hunter; they’d all looked _stunned_ when it was all over, like he was some misbehaving pet that had acted wildly out of character.

 _You_ , he thinks, turning to face Theo again, except—except he knows that’s a lie. Theo’s still looking at him but it’s the same way Theo’s _always_ looked at him: like he’s just Liam. Like that’s all Theo’s ever wanted him to be.

Liam’s expression spasms. _Now_ Theo looks away. 

Now he touches his tattoos.

Liam’s prepared for him to get up, then: they’d clearly passed Theo’s baseline level of tolerance for being around Liam without remembering his reasons for why he _shouldn’t_ be. Why he _couldn’t_ be. Steeling himself and shoving down, _down,_ the childish, unhappy thing that starts squirming in his chest, Liam looks away from him in turn and waits for him to make his excuses, and leave.

And Theo does climb to his feet. But instead of making some excuse, and walking away, he says, “Come on.”

Liam glances around in surprise, and sees Theo’s outstretched hand. He squints at it, and then at Theo directly. Theo’s expression spasms a bit, but then his lips quirk—and it’s not a _fake_ smile; Liam _knows_ the entire range of Theo’s faked smiles—and he waggles his offered fingers.

“What, you don’t want breakfast?” He challenges.

Liam feels his mouth drop open. “What? But the _summit_ , don’t you—”

Theo shrugs, hand still outstretched. “I don’t actually need to be there until tomorrow. I can leave late this afternoon, once the traffic has died down again.” He waggles his fingers a little more impatiently, now. “You telling me you _don’t_ want Daniel’s Diner?”

Liam can practically _feel_ his stomach start to rumble, like an immediate Pavlovian response to the idea of a plate full of the diner’s buckwheat waffles and a _giant_ side of bacon. Theo’s quirking lips widen into a full-on shit-eating _grin_ , and that’s it, right there: Liam’s reached out and accepted his hand before he’s even fully thought about it.

Theo hauls him up. Liam winds up close enough to the smile on Theo’s face that he _immediately_ thinks about tasting it, but it’s the work of a moment—it’s three long years of practice—to shove it away. 

He grins. He tells Theo, “Lead on, MacDuff,” because it’s never not funny to misquote Shakespeare at Theo, who remains as unimpressed as ever.

But unimpressed or not, Theo does lead on. 

And Liam follows. 

\---

“Oh, my god,” Lydia hisses, at the same time that she drives two of her fingers _right_ between Liam’s shoulder blades like a goddamn _piston_. “Stop _slouching_.”

Liam bites back a pained yelp at the pressure, and dances away. “ _Ow,_ Lydia!” He complains, glaring at her. She glares right back. With her perfectly applied lipstick, elegant up-do, and stunningly beautiful dress, Liam feels like he’s being scowled at by a painting come to life. He does, in fact, feel cowed.

His arms cross over his chest. His shoulders slouch inwards underneath the _ridiculous_ suit jacket he’d been forced—protesting all the while!—into.

“Liam!” Lydia says sharply; Liam just makes a face at her.

Luckily Stiles appears at exactly that moment, and interrupts Lydia’s brewing irritation by just flat-out sweeping her up into his arms, and swinging her around in a tight circle. Lydia bites off half a surprised shriek and then smacks a hand down against Stiles’ shoulder as she orders him to put her down. 

Stiles does, but then he ducks forward and kisses her, lingering and thorough and most _definitely_ ruining her lipstick. 

As predicted, when he pulls back, his _own_ mouth is covered in smears of red. Lydia glares. Stiles _grins_. Derek—who’d appeared behind Stiles—just gets a hand around Stiles’ collar, and yanks him back. 

Stiles glances up at him once Derek has. “I think you’re just jealous,” Stiles tells him, and while Derek rolls his eyes in response, he _also_ leans down to kiss Lydia’s lipstick off of Stiles’ mouth. 

Liam just looks away, something in his chest clenching at the sight. Of course, he winds up looking directly at _Mason_ and _Corey_ , who don’t look any less disgustingly besotted with each other. Mason’s grinning dopily up at Corey, and practically bouncing a little on his toes in his excitement. Still, his hands are resting _on,_ not clutching _at_ , Corey’s shoulders; mindful of Corey’s own suit jacket, and the potential for wrinkles. Corey grins right back, though he’s clearly excited by _Mason’s_ excitement. Liam knows for a _fact_ that Corey doesn’t like being back here anymore than Liam does; they’d been sitting in the corner of the McCall-Argent living room when the announcement had been made, and they’d shot each other grimacing, reluctant looks.

 _I hate this place,_ Liam thinks petulantly to himself, his eyes darting around the rough wooden walls and surprisingly-spotless floor of the Council’s barn: the one that they use for their most important diplomatic events.

The one that that same Council had _condemned_ Theo inside.

“Hey, c’mere,” someone suddenly says, and Liam jolts and glances around at Theo in surprise. Theo just gives him a lopsided smile and crooks a finger at him. “Your tie is all fucked up,” he explains. He lifts his hands but waits until Liam gives a jerky nod to actually reach forward, and start tugging at the apparently fucked-up loop of fabric around Liam’s neck.

Liam tries desperately to fix his eyes anywhere but on Theo himself as Theo works. He’s not even sure where Theo _got_ the suit he’s wearing, though he strongly suspects Theo went out and bought it. Maybe even had it _tailored_ , or something, because _christ_ does it fit well. Liam keeps desperately trying not to look.

It’s nearly impossible, though. For one thing, Theo’s _right there_ , filling up almost all of the space in Liam’s field of vision. For another, his movements to fix Liam’s tie mean that he keeps rocking Liam, tugging him this way and that as he gets the cursed fabric recentered on Liam’s neck, and then starts actually looping it around and over itself, his fingers deft and easy and sure. Liam frowns at him, can’t help it.

“How the hell do you know how to tie _ties?_ ” He demands.

Theo just shrugs, though the way that his lips quirk is just as deft and easy and sure as his fingers. He says, “I spent a lot of time undercover in high schools, back when I was with—” He doesn’t complete the sentence, doesn’t say _back when I was with the Dread Doctors,_ but Liam doesn’t need him to.

Doesn’t give him the _chance_ to, actually. He blurts out, the realization striking him all at once as, frankly, one of the most outlandish things he’s ever heard: “ _You_ went to _prom?_ ” 

The quirk to Theo’s lips becomes a _smirk_. “Why’s that surprise you so much?”

Liam doesn’t know why, really. It has something to do with how startlingly _normal_ it seems: going to prom. He has trouble picturing Theo doing something so banal. Picking out a suit. A corsage. Tying his _tie,_ apparently. Liam stares.

“Were you planning on going to _our_ high school’s prom?” He wonders suspiciously, helplessly curious now. 

Theo makes a face. “I mean, the shit was always going to hit the fan long before that point. But,” he says, expression going thoughtful, “I guess if it’d come to that, sure.”

Something _hot_ squirms in Liam’s gut. He hopes like hell Theo somehow doesn’t notice the likely change in his scent. “Who’d you have gone with?” He can’t help but probe.

Theo’s finished with Liam’s tie. He smooths it down with the very tips of his fingers, the line of heat they leave in their wake feeling like a _brand_ right down the center of Liam’s chest; vivisecting him. He looks up at Liam, and it’s probably unintentional that he’s doing it from under a ducked brow, the tilt of his head making his expression just the slightest bit sly as he delves his tongue firmly into his cheek to answer, “Maybe I would have third-wheeled you and Hayden.”

Liam fakes a laugh but that hot something that’d been in his gut is in his chest now, and _swooping_. He can’t help imagining it. 

He can’t _stop_ imagining it.

That’s about when Scott shows up, thank god. He looks—the word rising in Liam’s mind unbidden—almost _regal_. Or the postmodern analog to it, anyway: his suit is sharply cut and someway, _somehow,_ he’d gotten his crazy hair to behave. His shoulders under the line of his jacket are straight, and strong. 

His tie, Liam notes, is _impeccably_ tied. Liam swallows, his own shoulders hunching.

He jumps when Theo nudges him lightly in the side with an elbow. “Hey,” Theo murmurs quietly when Liam glances over at him. “You don’t need to be nervous.”

Liam just jerks his gaze away from him. He retorts, “Yeah? Because the last time we were at something similar, you accused me of trying to start a pack war.” Admittedly, breaking that asshole’s nose at the UCLA supernatural homecoming event hadn’t been Liam’s finest moment.

Theo grimaces. “I was maybe a little stressed out at the time.” He bumps Liam again, apparently when he sees that Liam has fallen right back into anxious brooding. “ _Seriously,_ ” he insists. “You’re going to be fine.”

Liam glances at him again, and then over at where Scott is now standing and talking quietly with Malia, who’d deigned to put on her own suit after a closed-door set of negotiations with Scott to which absolutely _none of them_ were privy. As he’s watching, Ms. McCall comes up to her son and tells him something; something that makes Scott throw back his head and laugh as Argent comes up on his other side, and claps him on both shoulders. 

Liam shifts in his own suit, the whole thing feeling itchy and ill-fitting and like a _lie_ , if he wanted to be both dramatic and completely honest. 

He squeezes his eyes shut, and reminds Theo, “This treaty is _important._ Everyone’s been saying so for _months,_ ever since Shohreh offered it. Deaton’s made Scott and me practice our parts in the ceremony so many times that I’ve literally been _dreaming_ about it, it’s—”

“—a complete formality,” Theo interrupts, swinging around so that he’s once again standing in front of Liam, rather than at his side. He searches Liam’s face, and says, “This treaty is a _complete formality_. It’s, it’s—” he stops, apparently fumbling for the right word, and then concludes, “—political theater. It’s _not_ that it’s not important,” he acknowledges, right over the top of Liam’s attempted argument, “but it’s _Shohreh_. She isn’t going to axe the whole ordeal and declare hostilities if you offer your left forearm instead of your right to McPherson, or whatever.”

Liam glares at him, though half-heartedly. “You’re making fun of me.”

Theo recoils. “I’m _not,_ ” he denies immediately; a little heatedly. “I’m,” he bites off a frustrated noise, his eyes jerking away from Liam’s own. He blows out a rough breath, and continues more quietly: “I’m trying to tell you that there is no set of mistakes you could make here—” he pauses, his lips twitching as he _clearly_ thinks back on Liam’s earlier comment, and Liam mentally fills in _short of punching somebody in the face,_ “—that could ruin this. Okay?”

Liam considers this, but in spite of himself he _is_ actually comforted. He exhales, and manages to let his shoulders sag out of their tight hunch as he does. His arms fall away from their crossed, defensive weave in front of his chest. He glances around.

“I don’t know how you can stand to be here,” he confesses. When he looks back up at Theo, Theo’s expression has gone raw.

But only for a moment. Then he seems to get it _forcefully_ back under control as he glances out, and around, too. His eyes flick over the rough wooden walls, the benches at the back _already_ starting to fill with members of other packs and hunter clans who’d come to witness the treaty signing; the currently-open doors that Liam had been unceremoniously dragged out of, that one time. The line of this mouth tightens.

But then he shrugs. “It’s not so bad.”

Liam _stares_ at him. “You nearly _died_ here.”

Theo just raises his eyebrows, and counters, “Scott and Argent saved my _life_ here.”

“Only _after_ you nearly died,” Liam retorts.

Theo’s lips just flicker. He looks genuinely amused. “I think that’s how saving someone’s life _works_.”

Liam rolls his eyes. He wishes Theo was uncomfortable being here because _Liam_ is uncomfortable being here. He wishes Theo hated it here because _he_ hates it here.

In the absence of it Liam just feels naive again. He feels young, just like Argent had warned him against last time he was here. 

He forces himself to shrug, and to look away from Theo, who apparently _isn’t_ uncomfortable, who apparently _doesn’t_ hate it here. But in doing so he winds up looking at Scott, who looks strong and sturdy and sharply put-together; who looks the exact _opposite_ of naive, or young.

The simmering mess in his chest threatens to spark up into frustration. Smothering it as best he can, Liam mutters, “Let’s just get this over with,” and walks away before Theo can respond.

\---

In t-minus nineteen hours and—last Liam checked, which was about thirty seconds ago—ten minutes, Liam is going to have to turn in a paper for his _Ethnic Conflicts: Causes and Resolutions_ course that’s worth a _whopping_ twenty-five percent of his grade, and he is—to put it mildly—completely fucked.

“C’mon, c’mon,” he mutters to himself, tapping frantically _at_ the keys of his laptop keyboard, without actually pressing any of them _down_.

He’d have to have something to _write_ to do that, and he’s got—just about nothing, really. When he’d originally proposed his paper topic to his professor, she’d gotten a very delicate look on her face that Liam had recognized from _Deaton_ , of all places. That look had said: _you’re an idiot, but it is my solemn duty to let you figure that out for yourself._

Unsurprisingly, she’d let Liam ride the wave of his enthusiasm right into his current mess.

In his defense, he’d spent the majority of the first half of the semester on the edge of his goddamn seat while they’d been discussing the topic, because _he’d fucking lived it._ Not _literally,_ of course, but the parallels to what had happened in Beacon Hills with Monroe had been so stark that Liam had had to stop himself, _multiple_ times, from blurting out the word _werewolf_ in the middle of class. 

He’d managed, because regardless of what Theo likes to claim, Liam _does_ actually have well-developed self-preservation instincts. But it’s meant that he’s had to separate out his first-hand experiences from his third-hand _research,_ and it’s—harder than he’d anticipated. He keeps forgetting how to be objective. He keeps looking at the clean-cut timeline of what had happened in history—so _clear,_ in hindsight, so perfectly traceable that _this_ happened because _that_ person did something, or didn’t—and wondering what would have happened if _Scott_ had done something different, if _Monroe_ had. 

If _he_ had.

_If you’d just listened to Scott in the tunnels, then Brett and Lori would be—_

Liam reaches forward, and slams his laptop lid shut. He buries his face in his hands, and tries to breathe through the claustrophobic clutch in his chest that feels like it’s squeezing his lungs tight, causing all his inhales and exhales to go shaky and unsatisfying. He gives up, when that doesn’t work, and curls over his laptop still sitting on his thighs.

He bolts straight upright when someone hesitantly ventures, “Hey, you, uh. You okay?”

Liam looks wildly around, and comes face-to-face with another student, stood back a bit from the corner that Liam had sequestered himself into and with a backpack slung loosely over one shoulder, his hands wrapped around the strap. As Liam stares at him, the other student gives him a flicker of an uncertain smile and then raises his eyebrows pointedly, a clear: _well?_ Liam realizes he’d never answered the question.

“Fine,” he answers automatically. 

He’s clearly lying and the other student _absolutely_ realizes that. But he also doesn’t push, just gives Liam another of those small smiles and tells him, “Okay.” He starts to turn to leave, then stops and turns back. “I’d maybe clear out, though,” he warns. “There’s been a bunch of noise complaints recently so the librarians are cracking down on non-engineering students studying here, and one of them is about to start their rounds checking IDs.”

 _Shit,_ Liam thinks. Out loud he just says, “What makes you think I’m _not_ an engineering student?”

The other student’s eyebrows just _climb._ He doesn’t have to say anything: his expression is perfectly communicative. Liam finds his lips twitching in spite of himself even as he’s protesting, “Hey, I _could_ be. This is like, academic profiling of the bad kind right here. _Rude._ ”

The other student _laughs,_ loud and helpless and with a look on his face like the very act had caught him by surprise. He quiets quickly, glancing around—and with Liam in fact hearing the irritated _shhhh_ coming from somewhere down the stacks—and shakes his head as he looks back at Liam, _his_ lips twitching now.

“Oh, well, my _apologies,_ ” he whispers. He studies Liam a little longer, and then tilts his head. “What are you doing in the engineering library anyway? It’s on like, the ass-end of campus.”

“Yeah, _exactly,_ ” Liam agrees, huffing. He shifts around a little to try and get more comfortable; he’d wound up twisted around to talk to the other student by merit of the fact that the guy had somehow managed to _sneak up on him,_ Liam’s chair tucked away in a corner of the stacks and facing a window letting in anemic amounts of late afternoon sunlight. “It’s practically the only place I can hear myself _think._ ”

He means it more literally than the other student probably realizes: at the other libraries— _including_ the one in the PoliSci building, which is the one Liam’s pretty sure he’s supposed to be using based on one of the bazillion forms he’d been forced to sign upon switching his major—the floors and rooms and corners had always been so filled with _people_ that Liam had never been able to concentrate. He’d tried to put in music only to be doubly-distracted from his work by other students’ conversations that he could _still hear_ ; by the cacophonous, overlapping pounding of their hearts. He’d attempted earplugs exactly once only to find that not being able to hear properly made him paranoid beyond all concentration; Mason had finally forcefully frogmarched him out of the library the fourth or fifth time he’d caught Liam’s eyes flaring without Liam noticing.

He can’t exactly explain any of this to the other student though, so he just grimaces and shrugs noncommittally.

The other student’s mouth purses in a slight moue. He squints a little at Liam, thoughtful—Liam squinting right back, confused—and then he blows out a comedically put-upon breath and puts one hand out, and crooks his fingers in a clear _gimme_ gesture. 

“Here,” he says, “give me your phone.”

Liam frowns at him. “What? Why?”

The other student just gives him an unimpressed look. He replies, “Students have to badge into the library normally. Which means you’ve been, what? Loitering outside the doors and tailgating people to get in?”

Liam’s face _flames._

The other student’s lips twitch again. He crooks the fingers of his outstretched hand once more. “So give me your phone, and if I’m around, you can text me. I’ll come down. Let you in, or whatever.”

Liam stares at him for a few seconds longer, and then he twists back forward in his chair and wiggles around until he can slip his fingers into his pocket, and slide his phone free. He unlocks it—ignoring the notification on-screen blandly declaring that he has a message from one _Theo Raeken,_ same as he had been all afternoon—and hands it over. The other student shoots him a strangely shy grin, and then looks down at Liam’s phone as he starts tapping in his information. Liam watches him, unable to look away.

“There,” the other student finally declares, and offers Liam’s phone back out.

Liam takes it, but doesn’t even bother to look down at it, because the other student had flashed him another of those quick, slightly uncertain grins and had lifted the hand he’d still had wrapped around his backpack strap in a wave, and had then turned to _leave._ Liam nearly falls _out_ of his chair trying to scramble after him, and only manages not to faceplant because his werewolf reflexes kick in and get his feet underneath him in time.

“Wait!” He calls, a little breathlessly. The other student twists slightly to look back at him, brow furrowing. The irritated student from down the stacks shushes them even _louder,_ but Liam pushes past his knee-jerk embarrassment—even though he can feel himself flushing—and bites his lip as he looks at the other student. He asks, “What if it’s not just that I want into the library?”

Now it’s the other student’s turn to look confused. “What?” 

Liam winces slightly at his own less-than-suave delivery, but manages to force out, “What if I just, you know. Wanted to grab coffee. Or, uh. Or dinner, or something.”

The other student’s eyebrows shoot up, even higher than they had when Liam had claimed that he could be an engineering student. Liam feels his heart preemptively start to drop into his shoes and he starts mentally berating himself—breaking and entering into another discipline’s library, _absolutely_ a killer way to set the mood—but then the other student touches his tongue to his bottom lip, and then smiles. It crinkles the edges of his eyes and seems to take over his whole face. Liam _stares_.

“Text me then, too,” the other student decides, and then he gives Liam another of those half-waves, and _another_ of those shy smiles, and finishes walking away.

Liam lets him go this time. He brings his phone up to his face, finally—his own wide, helpless grin reflecting back at him in the dark screen for the split-second before it lights up with the movement—and unlocks it so he can look down at the other student’s information still showing as the last active screen.

 _Jermayne, huh?_ Liam thinks, and then he pulls up an empty text thread, and starts tapping out a message as he goes to reclaim his seat.

\---

Liam unlocks the door to his and Mason’s and Corey’s shared off-campus apartment to Mason saying, “Yeah, but the Harbron pack alpha is the second most-senior werewolf on the Council after Shohreh, remember. If _she_ doesn’t think the proposal is a good ide—”

He cuts off as he clocks the opening door, and most specifically Jermayne standing behind Liam’s shoulder. His eyes go wide.

“—then the whole _campaign_ would fall apart, right, Corey?” He hurries to course-correct, his voice high and fast and a little squeaky. “We should talk to Scott about it. You know. As our—our DM, and all that.”

Corey’s expression is a study in not laughing at his boyfriend’s awkward attempt at subterfuge. He presses his lips together for a few seconds as he _clearly_ swallows back his amusement, and then he agrees, “Definitely. We should definitely talk to Scott, _our DM,_ about the potential issue with the campaign.”

Liam rolls his eyes. Behind him, Jermayne just laughs, easy and unconcerned. “You two are seriously so weird,” he tells Corey and Mason, but it’s kindly meant. He sidesteps around Liam—pausing to press a kiss to Liam’s cheek—and then holds up the giant brown paper bag in his hand. “You hungry? We bought enough sesame chicken and shrimp fried rice to choke a horse.”

“Or, you know, Liam,” Corey shoots back, _grinning_ at Liam and then grinning wider when Liam makes a face and fakes a laugh. He tilts his head towards the kitchen and then leads Jermayne towards it to go start unpacking their food.

Jermayne stays through their combined decimation of the boxes of Chinese he and Liam had brought and one episode of a show they’d all been idly following on Netflix, and then stands. He gathers up all his empty boxes and silverware—and a good portion of Liam’s and Corey’s and Mason’s, too, ignoring their protestations—and then he leans down to press his mouth to Liam’s, Liam tilting his head back against the couch back and arching up some to let him.

“Text me after your dinner tonight?” He requests. “There’s a chance I’ll still be in the lab banging my head up against Professor Brodaus’ sadistic labyrinth of a circuit that we’re going over in today’s class, but who knows? Maybe the electrical engineering gods will be smiling on me, and I’ll finish it before then.”

Liam nods. “Yeah, I will.”

Jermayne leaves after a detour to the kitchen to throw away his and Liam’s and Corey’s and Mason’s combined trash. They’d all lazily let the next episode start so it's playing in the background, but Liam ignores it, his eyes following Jermayne as he reappears from the kitchen and gathers up his bag and jamming his feet into his shoes. Jermayne notices the attention and grins softly, and gives him a small, still somewhat shy wave as he heads out the door, and closes it carefully behind himself.

Mason lets out an _explosive_ breath once he has, curling over his legs so that he’s hunched over next to Liam on the couch, his face in his hands. “The whole _campaign_ could fall apart? Oh my god.”

Corey just pats him sympathetically on the back. “I thought it was a really nice recovery. Super smooth,” he comforts Mason solemnly, and _one-hundred percent_ disingenuously. Mason turns his head to the side to glare at him through one eye, and then he turns his head the other way to look at Liam instead. He grimaces.

“Sorry, man,” he apologizes. When Liam just shrugs, mouth curling up in an amused smile, Mason huffs and finally straightens, only to collapse back against the couch back. “Not to sound like a complete dick,” he confesses once he has, his eyes once more on Liam’s face, “but it was _so much easier_ when you were dating Nejla.”

Liam’s expression spasms, the smile falling right off his face. He jerks his gaze away from Mason’s—the show is still playing itself out in the background, but even as Liam is looking _right at it,_ he’s not absorbing anything that he’s seeing—and feels his teeth clench. But out of the corner of his eye he can see Mason wince, and share a grimace with Corey, and so he sighs and forces himself to relax, and collapse back against the couch back in a mirror of Mason’s position.

“Yeah, well,” he finally replies. “It’s kind of nice.”

He glances over at Mason and Corey to find them frowning at him. He gives another of those shrugs, and explains:

“There’s no, you know. Crazy hunters-turned-were-jaguars with pet mindless berserkers, or supernatural ghost armies and sociopath Nazi lowenmensches, or genocidal high school _counselors_ in his world.” _There’s no mad scientists or their brainwashed personal spy,_ Liam thinks silently, but doesn’t say. “With him, it’s just—normal stuff.”

He shrugs again. He repeats: “It’s nice.”

“I get it,” Mason assures him quietly. He glances over his shoulder at Corey, and then corrects, “ _We_ get it.”

He settles back down a little more firmly on the couch so that his shoulder is pressed up against Liam’s. Corey gives Liam a crooked smile over Mason’s shoulder, and spreads one of his legs out so that it’s brushing up against Liam’s, his and Mason’s and Liam’s feet all tangled together in a messy pile in front of the couch. Liam just exhales out a rough breath, and presses back a little more firmly against them both, and tries to refocus on the show.

They make it through another episode and a half before Mason herds them up, and off the couch, to start getting ready to leave for dinner. “ _Never_ trust the Google Maps estimates for how long a drive is going to take in LA!” He shrills at Liam when Liam tries to protest. “How long have you been attending school in this town?”

Liam rolls his eyes, but heads upstairs to go shower. He firmly does _not_ listen to it when Corey scoops Mason up in his arms as Corey tells him, “Have I ever told you how adorable you are when you try to act like a disgruntled drill sergeant?” Liam gags exaggeratedly and starts taking the stairs two at a time as Mason squawks, and then that squawk is almost _immediately_ muffled, no doubt by Corey’s mouth.

But Mason is right, of course, and not even the Mario Kart-approach to speed limits, and—frankly—traffic safety that their Lyft driver brings to their profession manages to keep them from being late. Liam spends most of the ride trying not to wither under the force of Mason’s imperious glare—look, who _hasn’t_ gotten sucked into YouTube spirals while lying in nothing but a towel while they are, theoretically, supposed to be getting ready for something else?—and eventually he just gives up and announces, “Yes, you were _right,_ oh oracle of traffic predictions, I am _sorry_ for not bowing to your wisdom,” his tone clearly aggrieved.

He notices Corey’s eyes lighting up as Mason punches him lightly in the shoulder, but he doesn’t realize that Corey immediately bending over his phone had been Corey changing Mason’s name in all of their group chats to _oracle of traffic predictions_ until he pulls out his own phone—cackling and leaning sideways to avoid Mason still ragging on him—and goes to check it. He practically _collapses_ into breathless laughter when he sees it, and he’s _still_ laughing—Mason’s dry expression when he realizes notwithstanding—when they finally make it to the restaurant, and spill out of their Lyft.

Scott’s there standing on the sidewalk and talking into his phone. He waves in his typically-enthusiastic Scott way—so with his whole body, essentially—when he sees them, but doesn’t hang up right away. He _does_ gesture them into the restaurant—Liam can see Argent and Derek and Malia through the windows—but Liam waits when Mason and Corey head in. Scott frowns at him and mouths _everything okay?,_ and grins in relief when Liam nods and waves him easily off.

He comes over once he’s done with his call. “What’s up?” He asks, though only _after_ he’s pulled Liam into a hug that’s hard enough to make Liam squawk a protest as his ribcage grinds, and tousled a hand through Liam’s hair specifically—or so Liam concludes—for the way that it never fails to make Liam yelp out a protest.

Liam hops a few steps away from him, his eyes suspicious on Scott’s face as he tries to fix his hair. He _means_ to ask his question, but instead what falls out of his mouth is: “Where’s Theo? I thought he was flying back with you all.”

Scott’s expression sobers, a little. The quirk to his mouth goes a little more sympathetic. “He was supposed to,” Scott answers, “but the Kollmanns called and asked him to swing by while he was on the East Coast. He’ll be flying back in a few days, I think.” He brightens. “I think he’ll be flying into LAX, too. Maybe you can meet up.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Liam agrees vaguely, though he knows what answer Theo would give: a damn good excuse, and nothing else. He shoves aside the bitterness of the thought, and the disappointment that he hadn’t braced himself to feel tonight, and drags himself back to the point at hand. “I actually wanted to ask about Thanksgiving.”

Scott’s brow furrows. “Thanksgiving?”

“Yeah,” Liam replies automatically, his tongue reaching out to touch his bottom lip. “Yeah, I was wondering—” He looks in at the pack clustered around the table; at Mason and Corey already having taken their seats, and started laughing at something, _someone_ had said.

“Liam?” Scott presses gently, when Liam doesn’t continue.

Liam looks back at him. “I want to bring Jermayne home for Thanksgiving.”

“Oh,” Scott says, looking a little blankly surprised in the split second before a wide smile just _blooms_ over his face. “Oh, hey—that’s great! That’s exciting, man, I didn’t realize—wait,” he adds, squinting at Liam with his brow back to being furrowed, and even _harder_. “Why would you feel like you had to _ask_ if you could—”

Liam _winces_ —that’s the beginning of an unhappy thread starting up in Scott’s scent, that is—but then he takes a deep breath, and reminds Scott, “He doesn’t know about—about—”

In the end he just lifts his arms, and gestures between himself and Scott, and then in at the pack ranged around the table. Now it’s _Scott_ who winces.

“Ah,” he acknowledges. “Right.”

Liam crosses his arms, his shoulders hunching in a little on themselves. “I know it’d make things difficult for everyone,” he mutters, his eyes on the cracks in the sidewalk by Scott’s feet rather than Scott himself. “But I just—”

“Hey,” Scott interrupts, putting a gentle hand on his arm. “We’ll figure it out, alright? We can just have—everyone be on their best behavior, and if there are any slip-ups, you know, we can—” 

He stops talking, suddenly and without warning. Liam’s concerned for a second and then he looks up at Scott’s face and he becomes concerned for an entirely _different_ reason.

A _beautific_ smile blooms across Scott’s face. He says, “He thinks I’m the—the _DM_ for yours and Mason’s and Corey’s—”

“—nonexistent,” Liam cuts in, muttering, with no hopes of actually stopping this train.

“—Dungeons and Dragons group or whatever, right?” He finishes, as expected just completely blowing past Liam’s commentary without pause or _any_ sign that he’d deigned to acknowledge it. He grips Liam’s biceps with both hands and looks at him, very seriously. “We could get costumes,” he declares.

Liam _groans,_ loud and exaggeratedly.

“No, seriously!” Scott insists, reeling Liam in when Liam tries to stumble dramatically away. “We could, like. Pretend there’s an ongoing campaign for the _whole time._ We could get _everyone in on it._ ”

“I hate you,” Liam replies, but even as he says it he’s laughing.

Scott just grins, and shakes him a little with the arm he has around Liam’s shoulders. Liam snorts a last laugh, his head shaking, but can’t help grinning back. Scott squeezes him, and then releases him. He reaches for the door into the restaurant, and holds it open for Liam.

“Bring him,” he concludes, his eyes finding Liam’s and all humor gone from his expression and voice to just be gentle, and serious. “If he’s part of your life, he’s part of ours, okay?”

Liam can feel his throat close right up. He can’t speak—if he does, his voice is going to do something unforgivable like shake, or croak—and so instead he just nods.

The solemn expression on Scott’s face cracks in a wide, eye-crinkling smile. He tips his chin towards the door; towards the rest of the pack waiting inside.

Liam goes to join them, Scott following right behind him.

\---

No one is wearing any costumes when Liam and Jermayne get to town, but Liam knows it’s only a matter of a time. Theirs is a pack containing Stiles, after all, and there’s no _way_ he’ll miss this golden of an opportunity.

Over the days leading up to the actual holiday, they end up spending whole stretches of hours at Liam’s with Liam’s parents, which means Liam is able to take his worry about someone—including, most likely, _himself_ —slipping up and setting in motion a whole series of events that would end with Jermayne finding out that Liam’s a werewolf from like, DEFCON One to maybe a Three. _But you are planning on telling him at some point,_ Mason had ventured hesitantly a few days ago, him and Liam hunched over the dining table in their shared apartment and miserably going over their outlines for the finals they’d be taking nearly the _instant_ they set foot back on campus from break. Liam had dodged the question by asking Mason something about Professor Gupta’s class; Mason had taken it last year.

Now, in his parents’ kitchen, watching as Jermayne laughswith his mom about something that has his dad rolling his eyes, Liam pulls the inside of his lip between his teeth, and bites down. He shoves Mason’s question to the back of his mind, same as he had been doing since Mason had _asked_ it, and grins and goes to join in when Jermayne turns and glances around the room, clearly looking for him.

The morning of Thanksgiving, Liam heads over early to the Stilinski house, Jermayne in tow. He’s braced for tomfoolery of some kind, and he isn’t disappointed: Stiles is wearing a pointed wizard’s hat—the fabric an _eye-searing_ shade of bright blue and the whole thing embroidered with shiny silver stars and moons—when he pulls open the door. The look on his face is imperious, and behind Liam, Jermayne immediately lets loose a startled laugh that he clearly tries, and mostly fails, to stifle. Stiles keeps up the facade for a few more seconds, and then his expression cracks and he reaches out to pull Liam in.

“Why, if it isn’t our favorite level twelve werewolf!” He crows, not so much hugging Liam in greeting as bending him over into a headlock and beginning to dig his knuckles roughly across the top of Liam’s head. Liam _squawks_ and tries to shove him off. “I’ll have to let the alpha know you’re here!” He turns—Liam still trying to tug his head free of the loop of Stiles’ arm pinning him down—and bellows, “ _Scotty!_ ”

“Oh, my _god_ , kid,” the Sheriff complains, appearing from down the hallway and actively grimacing. “Were you raised in a _barn?_ ”

“Nah, mine daddy,” Stiles shoots back, lifting a hand to tip his ridiculous hat back up on his head, since it’d started to slide down his forehead with Liam’s struggles. “I was raised _right here,_ by you, the best father ever.”

The Sheriff rolls his eyes, and reaches forward to swipe the hat off Stiles’ head. He orders, “Let the poor man go,” to his son, Stiles still holding Liam fast, and then he switches his attention to Jermayne and smiles, wide and crinkle-eyed. 

He offers a hand. 

“Good to meet you,” he greets. “I’m Noah Stilinski. This goofball,” he adds, reaching behind himself to get a hand over Stiles’ face, Stiles having _finally_ released Liam and straightened up, “is my son, Stiles.” This time it’s Stiles who squawks and tries to get away.

“Nice to meet you,” Jermayne echoes, taking his hand. “Are you, uh. Part of this, too?” He nods towards the wizard’s hat the Sheriff is still holding.

The Sheriff’s expression goes dry. “Only when I need to bail my son and his friends out of whatever most recent trouble they’ve wandered into,” he answers wryly, looping an arm around Stiles’ neck and yanking him in. Stiles grins up at him.

“Don’t front. Our antics give you life,” he shoots back.

“Uh huh,” the Sheriff agrees, the sarcasm thick and unmistakable in his voice. He deliberately meets Jermayne’s eyes and then rolls his own. “That’s what they do.”

Scott shows up at that point, flour dusted up his arms and across the front of his shirt and with what looks like a streak of batter of some kind marking his neck. Liam breathes in automatically to try and catch the scent, and then grins: Argent _had_ cracked and agreed to make his homemade pumpkin pie, the liar. 

Scott greets Jermayne warmly—they’d met a few times when Scott had swung by UCLA for whatever reason—and Malia waves to him, too, when she passes by with her arms filled with tablecloths. Ms. McCall comes out of the kitchen at one point—she _hadn’t_ met Jermayne yet—and when Argent reappears from unloading chairs from his car, he winds up setting his armful of folding chairs against a wall to come forward, and offer Jermayne his hand.

“I am,” Jermayne declares quietly after everyone has drifted away to go keep attending to whatever they were doing before, “never going to be able to remember everyone’s names.” Scott and Malia at least are overhearing this confession, even from across the room: Malia grins, wide and amused, and Scott’s lips twitch. 

Liam just bumps Jermayne with his shoulder; he can hear the slightly-nervous tinge to Jermayne’s voice, and—even under the heavy smells of already-baking food—can detect the slightest anxious edge to his scent. He assures Jermayne, “Don’t worry about it.” He catches Scott’s eyes as Scott glances up—he’d clearly caught the same nervous signs that Liam had—and grins easily. “They’re a forgiving bunch.” 

Scott’s whole face seems to crease with his smile.

Liam’s mom is in the kitchen with Ms. McCall when Liam and Jermayne wander inside it looking for ways to help with the preparations. There’s an open bottle of wine on the counter and an 80’s playlist bopping from the speakers of the dock that Ms. McCall’s phone is hooked up to. Liam very strongly considers trying to herd Jermayne back out of the kitchen before his mom or Ms. McCall can do—exactly what they end up doing, his mom spotting them with a gleeful look in her eyes and immediately picking up her wine glass to serenade him and Jermayne as the chorus of the current song blares. Liam covers his face with his hands, and _drags_ them down his cheeks in an exaggerated grimace. 

Jermayne just _laughs._

Ms. McCall eventually assigns them to helping chop the mountain of things that need chopping in the kitchen once she and Liam’s mom have managed to recover from their respective loose, easy fits of giggles. Liam and Jermayne get to work, the two of them stood shoulder-to-shoulder in front of the cutting boards Melissa had dug out of the Stilinski’s cabinets for them, Jermayne occasionally leaning over to mutter things like, “That’s _Melissa,_ right? Her name’s Melissa?,” or, “Jordan. _Jordan_. Not _Jonathan,_ what the hell, self,” after Parrish arrives and introduces himself before heading back into the living room to go help Argent and Malia continue setting up tables and chairs.

Theo doesn’t arrive until _way_ later than Liam would have expected, and he’s unusually disheveled. His hair’s a mess and his clothes are wrinkled, and even though he doesn’t _look_ exhausted—no dark circles under his eyes, or gaunt skin to his cheeks—Liam bets that’s because of his healing; Theo’s certainly giving off the _sense_ of being completely bone-tired.

Liam frowns at him as Theo lifts his armful of reusable grocery bags onto some of the last free slivers of counter space. Theo grimaces when he notices Liam’s attention but he smooths out his expression quickly, his eyes flicking to Jermayne. He starts to open his mouth—probably to introduce himself—when Scott appears suddenly at his side instead; Liam frowns _harder_ , because the look on Scott’s face is unexpectedly serious. Theo jerks some and glances up at him. His grimace comes right back. Scott blows out an explosive breath, and gets a hand on his arm to start leading him out of the kitchen without a word.

“Everything okay?” Jermayne wonders quietly, his eyes on the little huddle of Scott and Theo in the living room visible through the kitchen entryway.

“I don’t know,” Liam murmurs back, his brow furrowed. He sharpens his hearing.

“The cease-fire is holding for now, but Scott—I don’t think it’s going to last much longer,” Theo is in the process of quietly reporting. As he does it he lifts one hand—his _left_ hand, the tattoos on his forearm stark in the mid-morning light—and rakes it back through his hair, tangling it up further. “The Lariviere pack isn’t buying that their beta’s death was an accident. They want the Marais to hand over the hunter who fired the shot.”

Scott covers his face with his hands, and then _drags_ them down his cheeks. “The Council has promised—”

“The Lariviere pack doesn’t _care,_ ” Theo interrupts. “They want—”

“He looks like he was driving all night, or something,” Jermayne observes thoughtfully, cutting into Liam’s concentration. His eyes are on Theo’s face.

Liam swallows, and admits, “I think he was.” He glances at Jermayne when Jermayne glances at him. He shrugs. “Theo does work for the—the family business,” he explains, falling back on the explanation he’d come up with for why the pack is _always_ together, and always seemingly mired in this or that more-or-less emergency. His eyes drift back to Theo as he adds, “He’s good with handling, um—” he hesitates minutely, suddenly scrambling for the right phrasing, because it’s not like he can say _delicate negotiations between perpetually feuding werewolf packs and hunter clans_ , “dissatisfied customers, so. So Scott has him travel a lot.”

Jermayne hums, his eyes drifting back to Theo; to Theo’s exhausted face. “Must have been a pretty dissatisfied customer.”

 _Must have,_ Liam thinks, but doesn’t say. Theo seems to catch his attention, and he looks over. The expression on his face is tight; more than a little unreadable. He refocuses on Scott.

They eventually separate. Theo comes back into the kitchen, and starts unpacking the bags he’d brought before seemingly realizing—literally with a visible jolt—that he _still_ hasn’t introduced himself to Jermayne, or been introduced. He laughs a little and shakes his head—his exasperation clearly directed at himself—and rakes another hand back through his hair before holding that hand out.

“Sorry, long night,” he says, his lips flickering in a charmingly quirked smile that just _invites_ Jermayne to share the joke Theo’s offering; the one at Theo’s expense. “It’s Jermayne, right?”

“Yeah,” Jermayne agrees, taking his hand. “Nice to meet you. Theo, right?”

Theo nods, his grin briefly flickering wider. He takes his hand back, and goes back to unpacking the various foodstuffs and serving dishes he’d brought, apparently to supplement what Ms. McCall and the Sheriff already have. The constant bend and flex of his arms puts his tattoos on stark display, and so Liam isn’t at _all_ surprised—though he can’t fully smother his wince—when Jermayne’s attention snags on them.

“Cool tattoos,” he tells Theo good-naturedly, nodding towards them when Theo glances up at him. “Do they mean anything?”

Theo freezes, and then his eyes drop to his forearm, and he brings his right hand over so he can dig the heel of his palm against the still jet-black, and not-at-all sun- or age-faded lines and curves. Liam has to look away, his jaw clenching.

“They’re a, uh. Permanent reminder of past mistakes,” Theo answers after a moment, and Liam finds his gaze _snapping_ over to Theo’s, stunned. Jermayne doesn’t seem to notice Liam’s reaction; he laughs lightly.

“What?” He wonders. “You get them while you were drunk, or something?”

Theo’s answering tone is easy. It’d never _stopped_ being easy, even when he’d been telling Jermayne the truth in such a way that it sounded like something else. He agrees, “Something like that.”

He doesn’t look back at Liam.

He also excuses himself shortly after, and doesn’t end up coming back to the kitchen; Argent intercepts him, looking for the same kind of report that Theo had provided Scott, and then when Ms. McCall groans upon realizing that _someone_ —Stiles protesting his innocence all the while—had forgotten their promised ingredients for the stuffing, Theo offers to run to the store. For the first few minutes after he leaves it’s nearly _impossible_ to put Theo’s continued absence out of his mind—right along with Theo’s clearly exhausted state—but the house is bustling with that specific, buzzing holiday energy, and everyone—and his _pack_ —is close and loud and constantly bumping into each other; constantly clapping shoulders and yanking each other into one-armed hugs and grinning, and grinning, and grinning.

But _Jermayne_ is beside him, warm and laughing and with his smile losing more and more of its shyness as the day wears on. Liam can’t stop his own echoing smile from taking over his face. Doesn’t want to.

Still, when they actually go to sit down for dinner, Liam tries to steer them to a quieter corner of the room. Jermayne interacting with the pack one-at-a-time as they wandered in and out of the kitchen? Totally doable. Jermayne being essentially _dog-piled_ —Liam’s lips twitch in spite of himself when he thinks that—by the entire pack at once while _also_ attempting to eat some of the food he’s spent the day helping to cook? More likely to be overwhelming. 

Hell, _Liam_ still gets overwhelmed sometimes, and he’s been a member of this pack for a good portion of his life, now.

But his plans are dashed the second he and Jermayne step out of the kitchen with their now fully-loaded plates: Ms. McCall spots them and calls, “Oh, no, no, no. No, you don’t. Get over here.” She waves towards a pair of empty seats near her and the Sheriff and Malia, the latter of whom is practically already facedown in her plate and _inhaling_ her food.

Liam freezes, deer-in-the-headlights style: “Uh, that’s okay,” he tries to demur. “We‘ll just, um—” His attempts to gesture weakly towards a different pair of chairs towards the end of the table are met with an—admittedly—totally expected amount of disdain. Jermayne shoots him an amused look, and then bumps him with his shoulder.

“C’mon,” he coaxes. “They can’t be _that_ bad,” he attempts to murmur out of the corner of his mouth, which of course practically _everyone_ in the room hears thanks to their supernatural ears; several sets of lips twitch. 

Liam gives up with an exaggerated slump of surrender, and follows Jermayne over to the seats that Ms. McCall had indicated.

“ _So,_ ” Ms. McCall begins, once they’ve sat. Her eyes are practically gleaming. Liam spends a moment eyeing her suspiciously: had _she_ somehow heard what Jermayne had said? But then he’s dragged roughly back to the moment, because she continues: “I’ve heard a lot of versions of this story, but with _this_ group—” she gestures her arms wide, “—it’s always better to trust, but verify. How _did_ you two meet?”

Liam groans, and covers his face with his hands, because he knows _exactly_ what’s coming. Jermayne glances at him, his face already creasing into that wide, wide smile—the same one he’d been wearing the day they’d met, topically enough—and then he turns back to Ms. McCall and tells her:

“Oh, you know. Liam here just decided to engage in some light breaking and entering.”

“It was _not_ breaking and entering!” Liam protests reflexively, even though he _knows_ it’s going to be pointless. That the pointlessness might, in fact, be the point itself: Jermayne throws back his head and _laughs,_ right along with Ms. McCall and the rest of the room who’d been close enough to overhear and start listening in.

The conversation carries itself through from there, the participants constantly shifting and changing as various pack members get up to get more food, or get hollered at by others who then immediately get hollered at themselves to stop hollering. Liam finds himself collapsing against Jermayne’s shoulder in breathless laughter at one point after the Sheriff out of nowhere offers, “You know, I remember _my_ college days,” and then just launches into one of the most unexpectedly hilarious stories Liam can remember hearing in recent memory. It’s made all the _better_ by how it leaves Stiles staring at his father like he’s never met him before.

“What?” He just keeps squawking. “What? Why have I never heard this before? Why do I not have _all the details_ on this?”

“I guess you never asked,” the Sheriff replies innocently, and takes a victorious bite of his meal.

Liam finally manages to straighten up, though he’s still laughing in silent, helpless bursts. Jermayne shakes his head slightly—equally amused by the story and by Liam’s amusement, Liam expects—and grabs his empty glass of what _was_ mulled apple cider from the table. “I’m going to go,” he explains, waving the glass around pointedly. “You want another?”

He starts to reach for Liam’s glass, too, but Liam snags it before he can. “I’ll come with you,” he says, and pushes his chair back to follow Jermayne into the kitchen.

When they reach it, Jermayne _does_ make a beeline for the crockpot tucked away in the corner of the counter containing the mulled cider. He does _not,_ however, immediately reach for the ladle sitting on a plate next to the pot to start refilling their glasses. Liam frowns lightly.

“You okay?” He wonders quietly, dropping his chin onto Jermayne’s shoulder and wrapping his arms loosely around his waist. Jermayne immediately turns to smile at him, and it puts his mouth close enough that he can press a quick, close-mouthed kiss to Liam’s.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m good,” he answers, and it’s clear not only from his words but from his _scent_ —from the easy way his heart is beating against Liam’s, Liam’s chest pressed up to his back—that he means it. Still, he searches Liam’s eyes for a few seconds, and then softly adds: “They’re really great.”

Liam feels himself startle, and his eyes widen. Almost immediately after he can feel himself start to _blush,_ and Jermayne’s face is like, two inches from his own. There’s no way he doesn’t notice. Jermayne snorts gently and turns in the circle of Liam’s arms to look at him, his expression narrow and shrewd.

“What?” He probes. “Did you think I _wouldn’t_ think that?”

“What? _No!_ ” Liam immediately denies, thrown _again_ from whatever meager recovering he’d managed to do since the last time Jermayne had spoken. “I just—” He hesitates, his head turning slightly to look over his shoulder back towards the living room, because no matter how quietly he and Jermayne are having this conversation—and Jermayne is, because he’s _exactly_ that kind of person, using the exact same volume that Liam is, no explanation necessary—he knows that there’s no _way_ they’re not being overheard. In the end he just shrugs, slightly, and murmurs: “I don’t know. Isn’t that everyone’s worst fear? That their partner isn’t going to like their friends and family?”

Jermayne just gives him a lopsided smile. “Well, I don’t know about _worst_ fear…” he replies, deliberately lofty for the way he knows it’ll make Liam’s expression go dry, which Liam’s expression immediately _does_. He lifts his hands and cups them around Liam’s face as he leans forward and kisses him, soft and easy and slow. Liam lets his eyes squeeze shut, and brings his hands up to anchor themselves around Jermayne’s wrists as he kisses him back.

“I’m really glad you’re here,” he confesses quietly. 

Jermayne smiles, and starts to reply, and then they both startle, because Stiles suddenly complains from out in the living room, his voice getting louder all the while: “What? Why are all of you flapping your hands like a bunch of overcaffeinated air traffic controllers? I’m just going to the kitchen to—oh.”

He cuts off, blinking, because he’d finally made it through the entryway and is now staring, wide-eyed, at Jermayne and Liam still standing closely together. He starts to nod slowly and then more quickly, his lips folding between his teeth, and then he leans backwards and twists awkwardly around to announce to the rest of the pack waiting in the living room, “I get it now. _Totally_ get it.”

“Hey, Stiles,” Liam greets dryly. 

“Sup, Liam,” Stiles returns, as he straightens back up. He gives Jermayne a patently-ridiculous bro nod. “Hey, Jermayne.”

“Hi, Stiles,” Jermayne answers gamely. “We were just grabbing some more cider.” He drops his hands away from Liam’s face to retrieve one of their glasses, and waggle it pointedly. “Did you want one?”

Stiles gives this _visible_ thought. “Yeah, you know. What the hell. Load me up.” He starts coming forward towards the crockpot, so Liam takes a few steps backwards to give Jermayne room to maneuver. 

Still, he catches Jermayne’s eyes, and grins. Jermayne grins back.

They head back out to the living room after, where the rest of the pack—not that Jermayne will be able to recognize it as such—adopts a studious, _terrible_ atmosphere like they were _not_ aware of exactly what Liam and Jermayne had been doing in the kitchen. Liam just rolls his eyes, and in doing so, he happens to catch Theo’s across the way. Theo grins, light and easy. He goes back to his conversation with Mason and Corey, his own glass of cider held loosely in his hand.

Liam reaches forward, after, and threads his fingers through Jermayne’s as Jermayne weaves his way back through the maze of tables and people back to their seats. _I think we’re going to be able to do this,_ he thinks, smiling at Jermayne and squeezing his fingers one last time before reclaiming his seat at Jermayne’s side. _I think_ I _am going to be able to do this._

That feeling lasts almost _exactly_ as long as it takes Scott’s phone to start vibrating down the table a little while later. Scott slides it free of his pocket while still chattering animatedly with his mom and Stiles, but then _pales_ when he glances down at the screen.

Around the room, the noise level drops like a _stone_. Liam had been concentrating on trying to deal with the renegade green bean he’d dropped into his lap, so he’s not looking up when it happens; his head jerks up in the sudden silence to see that Argent’s and Derek’s and Malia’s and Theo’s eyes are _fixed_ on Scott. When Scott stands—his thumb already swiping across the screen to answer the call—they all stand with him. When Scott heads out to the backdoor, his phone already held up to his mouth as he demands, “What happened?,” the four of them follow him out.

“That doesn’t seem good,” Jermayne observes, shooting a look at Liam. “Emergency with the business?”

“Probably,” Liam manages, though he’s doing it through a tight throat; he’s hearing Theo say _the cease-fire is holding for now, but Scott—I don’t think it’s going to last much longer._

It takes Scott and the others almost a full half-hour to come back inside, Liam giving himself a headache trying to listen in without _looking_ like he’s listening in. Jermayne—because he’s honestly a better person than Liam really deserves sometimes—gives up on talking to him without complaint and lets himself get pulled into a conversation with Liam’s parents instead.

He threads the fingers of one of his hands through Liam’s, though. Liam holds _tight_ to them.

The expressions on Scott’s and the others’ faces when they return are tense; thin-lipped. Argent and Derek and Malia stay right by the door talking in low voices as they begin to pull on coats, and dig car keys out of their pockets. Scott heads over to his mom and the Sheriff to crouch between their chairs, talking rapidly as he no doubt explains the situation. Theo, impossibly, looks even more exhausted than when he’d stepped outside.

He is also, however, the only one who ventures close enough to Liam that Liam can snag the edge of his shirt, and haul him to a stop. “What’s going on?” Liam can’t help but demand. Theo freezes, and looks down at him. His eyes flick to Jermayne.

“Nothing you need to worry about,” he finally says, voice firm as he looks back at Liam. The message there is an order: _seriously, don’t worry about it._ He looks at Liam a little longer, and then smiles at Jermayne. “It was nice meeting you. Sorry for the holiday interruption.” He shrugs, and his tongue is a little more firmly in his cheek—though Liam’s the only one who can really recognize it—when he adds, “The hazards of small business ownership, huh?” Liam winces, suddenly feeling like an idiot.

“No, hey—do what you’ve got to,” Jermayne immediately demurs, reaching out to accept the hand Theo offers. “Good luck with—whatever it is.”

“Thanks,” Theo returns, and then finishes padding over to snag his plate—which is what he must have been planning to do originally—before he heads for the kitchen to deal with it, and then goes to join Derek and Malia and Argent. Scott joins them shortly after, having received a short, sharp nod from Ms. McCall.

Jermayne watches them go and then blows out a low, rough breath. “It’s got to be _some_ emergency.” He gives Liam a sympathetic flicker of a smile.

Liam can barely return it. All the bubbling giddiness that had filled his chest throughout the course of the day starts to burst, the sensation of it more than a little painful. “It always is,” he manages to reply, his eyes on Scott’s back as Scott closes the door behind himself, the other four already gone.

His voice is flat rather than bitter. He’s not sure whether it’s an improvement.

\---

“Jermayne?” Liam calls as he shoulders open the front door to the off-campus house Jermayne shares with two other overworked engineering undergrads. He wrestles his key free of the lock—the damn thing always sticks—and pockets it as he adds, “You here?”

The answer is _yes_ and he knows it: he can hear Jermayne’s heartbeat coming from the living area, and—smell his scent. Liam’s nose wrinkles. The bite of it is unexpectedly sharp, and fuzzed at the edge with a sort of anxious nervousness that sets _Liam’s_ stomach to roiling. He swallows down a reflexive mouthful of saliva—the many joys of being a werewolf, who knew—and drops his bag by the door before going to ferret Jermayne out.

Jermayne’s exactly where Liam had guessed he’d be: in the middle of his and his roommates’ sagging, 70’s-era rescue couch. He jumps and looks up when Liam appears in the entryway, his eyes wide.

“Liam!” He exclaims, sounding genuinely surprised. He must not have heard Liam come in, or call out for him. Liam’s stomach roils harder. He hesitates in the entryway, one hand on the jamb of the nearest wall. His bottom lip folds between his teeth.

“You okay?” He ventures, his fingers curling harder in against the wood.

Jermayne frowns at him—some of the surprise on his face transmuting into _concern_ —and it’s really only then that Liam clocks the letter that Jermayne is holding in both hands. Now _he_ frowns at the simple slip of a paper, and then _his_ eyes widen; he recognizes the seal in the corner. 

He starts to come forward, all his nervousness forgotten as he excitedly demands, “You got it? You got the internship?”

Jermayne just shakes his head, but his scent—and his heartbeat, which had kicked _up_ as Liam had started to approach—is all wrong for a rejection. Liam starts to slow, confused, but he’s already close enough that Jermayne can offer up the letter for him to take. His expression is tense, but—anticipatory. Held-breath _waiting._

He explains, “I got the _job._ ”

Liam feels his mouth drop open, and his eyes bug slightly. His hand freezes midair from where he’d been reaching for the letter, already half-prepared to read the first line’s _we regret to inform you,_ or similar. “ _What?_ ” He breathes.

Jermayne’s mouth _splits_ in a wide, helpless grin. The corners of his eyes crinkle. “Yeah,” he says a little breathlessly, waving the letter in his hand a little more insistently: a clear _take it_. “Yeah, it—I didn’t even know they were _considering_ it, but…” 

Liam takes the letter, finally. He starts to skim it. Where he’d been bracing himself to see a rejection, he instead sees _Given your exemplary service during your previous internship, on behalf of our company, we’d like to offer you…_

He _grins._ He jerks his gaze back up to meet Jermayne’s.

He crows, “Holy _shit,_ Jermayne!”

He throws the letter aside, and half-tackles Jermayne back against the couch. “Ouch,” Jermayne opines, but he’s laughing. His hands land on Liam’s hips, and _squeeze_. Liam just smothers his laughter with a hard kiss, his hands coming up to cradle either side of Jermayne’s face. At any moment they’re going to fall off the couch—Liam’s tackle hadn’t really been strategically sound, and they’re all cock-eyed and precariously placed—but he doesn’t _care._ He kisses Jermayne harder.

“I wouldn’t—I wouldn’t start until after I graduate next summer, of course,” Jermayne is still breathlessly trying to explain in-between the hard presses of Liam’s mouth. He can’t seem to _stop_ the words spilling out of his mouth, his scent saturated with excitement. “I’d do another internship _this_ summer—that’s in there, too—but then. But _then…_ ”

He laughs again. _He_ gives up on talking, and starts to kiss Liam back more fully. 

He wraps an arm around Liam’s waist at one point, and rolls them so that Liam is pinned below him on the couch. He raises up some once he has their positions reversed, and grins. Liam reaches up to trace it.

“You’re amazing,” Liam tells him softly. “You’re— _god,_ ” he cuts himself off, and reaches up to get his arms around Jermayne’s shoulders so that he can collapse back down, pulling Jermayne more fully on top of him with an _oof._ “Who even _does_ that? College junior and you’re already…” He laughs again, breathless and giddy. “I _saw_ those zeros on the end of that salary offer.”

Jermayne just laughs right back, his face buried in Liam’s neck. “It’s—right? When I got the offer a few days ago, I couldn’t—”

Liam freezes, and then pushes him away slightly so that he can look up into Jermayne’s eyes. He frowns. “A few _days_ ago…?” He repeats; a question.

Jermayne winces.

And then he _jumps_ —as does Liam—because his phone in his pocket, the slim rectangle of it trapped between his thigh and Liam’s, starts to vibrate. He fumbles a hand blindly down to search for the button on the side of it that will silence the rumbling, his eyes never leaving Liam’s face.

“Yeah, I—” He starts to explain, then almost immediately stops. His throat bobs as he swallows. “I got it and I was _going_ to tell you, right then. I’d even—even pulled out my phone and started to call you, but then I—”

His phone starts to vibrate again. He makes a rough noise and silences it again, though this time his eyes dart down to follow his hand. When he looks back up to meet Liam’s eyes again he winces; Liam wonders what the hell his own face is doing to cause that reaction.

“I don’t understand,” Liam confesses to him, his voice scrubbed clean from shock but with the barest beginnings of _hurt_ starting to filter in. “Why wouldn’t you _tell—_ ”

But he can’t finish his question, because Jermayne suddenly blurts out, “Because I want you to come with me,” cutting him off.

Liam’s jaw snaps shut. He _stares_.

“What?” He breathes.

Jermayne’s expression spasms and then goes tight. He pulls the very edge of his bottom lip between his teeth and bites down hard enough that Liam’s worried he’s going to puncture it. He manages, “I-I want. I want you to come with me,” he repeats, then clarifies: “To Florida. After—after we graduate.”

Liam keeps staring. Jermayne _flinches_ this time instead of wincing, and sits back on his heels on the far side of the couch, Liam’s legs still sprawled on either side of his hips. Probably Liam should sit up, assume a more dignified position, but he’s too stunned: _I want you to come with me. To Florida._

“I didn’t tell you because I was figuring out _how_ to tell you,” Jermayne stammers, a little incoherently. “I know how close you are with your family, and—and uh, _adventuring_ group,” he offers, his lips flickering in a weak smile at the attempted joke, though it falls heavily flat between them because Liam still can’t _think_ properly, “back in Beacon Hills. But I…”

He searches Liam’s face. He bites his lip again, and then leans back down over Liam so that he’s covering Liam bodily again, his hands coming up to hold either side of Liam’s jaw.

“I know you’re supposed to join the—the _family business,_ or whatever,” he insists, his voice taking on a little bit of a raw edge; a little bit of a desperate one, “but I know that you—that _you_ …”

He doesn’t finish his sentence, thank god. Liam doesn’t know what he was planning on saying but he’s _positive_ he doesn’t want to hear it: that he might not be able to _handle_ hearing it. Luckily Jermayne’s phone starts vibrating again. He makes a rough noise and rears back to finally wrestle it out of his pocket, and glance at the screen.

He bites off another frustrated noise. “It’s my aunt. My mom was going to tell her about the job offer today, I—” He pauses, and looks beseechingly at Liam. “I _have_ to take this, but just—just don’t go anywhere, okay? _Don’t,_ ” he repeats desperately, “go anywhere.”

Jermayne scrambles off of the couch, and starts jogging away towards the front of the house—towards the front door—as he answers his phone. Liam hears the excited torrent of words that _bursts_ through the speakers from the other side of the line, a giddy cacophony of congratulations and exclamations from a cadre of cousins and Jermayne’s aunt and uncle. 

He squeezes his eyes shut, and covers his face with his hands. He doesn’t move from his position sprawled awkwardly back across the length of the couch.

He doesn’t go anywhere.

Jermayne comes back less than fifteen minutes later. Liam had deliberately closed off his hearing so that he couldn’t overhear the call anymore, but he catches the series of creaks and then the soft click as Jermayne opens the front door and steps back into the house, and then closes it behind himself again. Liam’s hands had still been over his face; he’d been breathing around his palms, muffled and unsatisfying.

He drops them when he senses Jermayne in the entryway, Jermayne’s footsteps slowing to a stop and his heartbeat spiking. Liam crooks his head slightly so that he can meet Jermayne’s eyes, his own feeling heavy-lidded and tired.

“Oh,” Jermayne realizes, soft and raw. “Oh, you are—not coming to Florida with me.”

Liam’s expression screws up _hard._

“I can’t,” he whispers, because he _can’t:_ the truth of it lodged up under his throat, immutable.

The fight lasts all night.

After it’s over—after it’s _over_ —Liam slinks home, and crawls into bed. He stays there for the rest of the day, practically, and he doesn’t move even when first Mason, and then Corey, crawl right into his bed with him. They press close on either side of him, Liam flat on his stomach with his face buried in one of his pillows. Corey presses his face against the side of one of Liam’s arms. Mason drops his chin onto Liam’s opposite shoulder blade.

He asks, “You want to talk about it?”

“No,” Liam tells him, his voice muffled by the pillow.

Mason hums; Liam can feel the vibration of it radiating out through his own body. He digs his chin a little harder into Liam’s shoulder blade. He wonders, “Do you want to get drunk about it?”

Liam lifts his head up some from where he’d been half-smothering himself with his pillow, shifting some so that he can lay it down sideways, and squint up at Mason. On his other side, Corey makes a sound as the movement causes Liam’s arm to mash against his nose; he resettles, his breaths continuing to puff against Liam’s bicep and elbow.

“Yes,” Liam decides.

They go to Delta Rho. Mason had refused to let Liam out of the house until _after_ he’d seen with his own two eyes that Liam had dragged himself into the shower and then put on something _other_ than sweatpants, and the result—as annoyed as Liam had been at the time—is that Liam actually does manage to feel something closely approximating, well. Not _human,_ clearly, but whatever the werewolf equivalent is. He lets Mason pay his and Corey’s entrance fees—sharply discounted because the current door person has a _helpless_ crush on Mason that Corey finds endlessly amusing—and then snags a red cup of aconite-laced beer from the first liquored-up student he passes.

“Hey!” They protest, but in a fading lilt; Liam had kept right on following Mason and Corey through the crowd even as he’d been taking his first, large mouthful of cheap beer.

It is not, by far, the _last_ mouthful he takes that night.

“How are you this fucking heavy when you’re this fucking _small?_ ” Corey bitches when he and Mason finally drag Liam back home, and get him wrestled up the stairs to his room and into his bed. Liam blows a dismissive, insulted raspberry in response. That he does it _right_ in Corey’s ear is _mostly_ an accident.

Still, Corey dumps him—with Mason’s help—onto his bed immediately after. “You’re a mess, Dunbar,” he informs him, but the edges of all his words are fond, not sharp. He leans down to assist Mason in wrestling off Liam’s shoes, and getting him situated more in the middle of the bed so that he’s less likely to fall off in the middle of the night.

Liam sleeps for a while, his dreams aconite-laced alcohol-soaked and strange. When he wakes up the first time he thinks it’s because of whatever he’d been dreaming, but then he realizes: his phone is vibrating insistently on his nightstand. 

He groans, and reaches over for it.

It’s only once he’s answered it that he realizes the incoming call had been a video-call: Scott blinks at him through the screen, and then quirks him a loose, easy smile when Liam groans in exaggerated despair.

“Those traitors,” Liam grouses. “Which of them snitched?”

Scott just hums an easy laugh, and doesn’t answer. “Maybe it was my super secret True Alpha abilities,” he suggests instead, waggling his eyebrows ridiculously. 

Liam snorts, and then immediately regrets it when it causes his stomach to roll with nausea. He groans and curls up into a little ball on his side, his phone still clutched in his hand but pointing—somewhere. He has no idea what Scott’s seeing.

Scott doesn’t seem to care. He asks, “You want to talk about it?,” same as Mason had earlier.

And same as he’d _replied_ to Mason earlier, Liam tells him, “No.”

“Okay,” Scott agrees amicably, and doesn’t press. 

He also doesn’t _say_ anything else, though he doesn’t hang up, either. Instead, he—once Liam’s stomach manages to settle that he can peek an eye out, and check the screen—starts to hum as he sets his phone down somewhere on a section of counter in his and Malia’s shared apartment on the outskirts of UC Davis’ campus, and just keeps puttering around: putting away a pile of dishes that’d been drying on the towel next to the sink; organizing a chaotic set of papers into several neat stacks that he then slots carefully into his backpack, hanging by one of its straps off one of the kitchen table’s chairs.

 _What are you doing?_ Liam nearly demands, except that he _knows_ what Scott is doing. The longer Scott stays on the phone, the sound of him humming absently to himself accompanied by the background track of his loose, easy movements filtering through the speakers, the more something gone tight in Liam starts to unwind. Liam closes his eyes as they start to burn, his ears _fixed_ on the steady sounds of Scott moving around, and breathing soft and easy—even his _pulse_ that Liam can hear if he concentrates is a smooth _ba-dum_ —and Liam shudders out his own, far less steady breath. It’s too close to a sob for his liking but Scott doesn’t even pause; just opens a drawer and roots around in it, the straight line of his posture visible in the corner of Liam’s phone screen. 

“Hey, Scott?” Liam finally ventures, once he’s got his breathing back under control and he’s _sure_ his voice isn’t going to crack.

“Yeah, Liam?” Scott answers immediately, his eyes flicking up to meet Liam’s through the camera.

“I, um,” Liam starts, and then has to stop, and swallow. He clears his throat, and tries again, “I think I’m going to change my major.”

Scott frowns lightly, and closes the drawer he’d been searching through. He makes his way back over to his phone, and then crouches down so his face is level with it. He spends a few seconds studying Liam’s face—or what he can see of it, anyway, Liam’s face half-buried in his pillow—and then he asks, “Back to history?”

The burning in Liam’s eyes roars back with a _vengeance_. He gulps in a huge breath, the answer to the questions he’d prepared for— _to what?,_ or _why?_ —transmuting into _lumps_ that he has to breathe around, and he doesn’t manage anything more than a shaky nod in answer.

Scott searches his face for a few seconds longer, and then his mouth quirks up in a smile. “Okay,” he acknowledges.

He straightens up, after, and _does_ start to talk, then: a steady stream of updates on his classes, on Malia, on rumors he’d heard from back home. Liam listens with half an ear, his throat still tight and his eyes squeezed shut, and he must fall asleep like that, because when he blinks himself awake a few hours later, it’s morning. Liam squints at the sunlight creeping its way across his bedroom floor, and then groans and tries to turn his face further into his pillow.

But he winds up turning it directly into his phone, which he’d apparently dropped right next to his face sometime in the night. The movement of Liam accidentally mashing the side of his cheek and lips against it causes the screen to light up, and Liam sees out of one squinted eye that he has a text. He reaches over with his far hand to tug his phone free of its place between his cheek and his pillow, and thumbs open the message.

He drops his phone immediately back down after, his eyes not only starting to burn but _spilling_ over. He turns his face into his pillow and _presses_ it there as he shudders out a desperate breath.

 _I’m proud of you,_ Scott’s text had said. 

Liam squeezes his eyes shut harder, and curls a little more completely in on himself. He stays like that for a long time. 

\---

There’s something comforting, Liam thinks, about the fact that breakfast buffets the world over are the same kind of universally shitty. He could be back in Beacon Hills for a lacrosse team fundraiser, or at UCLA during one of their half-assed catered lecture series, or right where he is—in the banquet hall of the UC Davis biology building for the families and friends breakfast the department is throwing for their graduating seniors—and the fruit plate would be the same kind of depressingly picked-over, the assorted muffins as simultaneously strangely sticky and already stale. 

He snorts, and adds two of the latter, and the last of the pineapple from the former, to his plate, and then goes to claim a seat next to Mason at the table the pack had grabbed.

Mason is in the middle of stealing Corey’s pile of scrambled eggs by the forkful, because Corey’s too busy blearily sucking down a cup of watery coffee to stop him. Lydia’s bag is sitting on a chair across from him but she’s across the room, talking to—a professor, as far as Liam can tell. Derek is next to her looking as supportive as possible while also looking _completely_ out of his element; Stiles had left him to Lydia’s not-so-tender mercies and wandered off to go pick at the buffet. Liam smirks, amused, and as he’s looking away he ends up spotting Ms. McCall, who’d gotten up from their table to go get more coffee, and had wound up in a spirited conversation with another parent. Argent comes up behind her as she’s casting absently around for a stir-stick to mix in the little container of creamer she’d just poured into her coffee, and drops one into her cup; she grins up at him, wide and crinkle-eyed.

Liam grins himself, and looks back down at his plate.

But he ends up looking right back over at Mason when Mason whistles lowly and mutters, “This is going to be _us_ in a year, can you believe it?”

He’s staring out at the graduating seniors dotted throughout the hall, all of them already in their gowns, though only a few had elected to wear their caps, and seemingly mostly in jest. They’re all practically _buzzing_ with a kind of low-grade, constant excitement that’s a little infectious; Liam had found himself _jittery_ with it nearly the second he’d walked in, and it’d caused his fingers to start to drum absently on the table, his toes to tap. 

Except that at Mason’s words, he freezes. All that jitteriness goes sharp-edged and _prickly_ rather than the bubbly it’d been before. Liam has to swallow once and then again to actually clear his current mouthful of rubbery eggs and underdone potatoes, because the first time he tries it they stick in his suddenly-tight throat. He does his best to cover it up by picking up his plastic cup of orange juice, and taking a _huge_ drink.

But he needn’t have bothered: neither Mason nor Corey are paying enough attention to him to notice. Mason is still surreptitiously watching the gown-clad seniors while trying to _look_ like that’s not exactly what he’s doing, and Corey’s snorting.

“Please,” he says, giving Mason a dry look. “Like you haven’t already started applying to law schools.”

Mason flushes and then digs his elbow _right_ into the middle of Corey’s ribs; Corey squawks. “Yeah, okay, _pot._ Yesterday I saw your open browser window and it was just endless tabs of information on nursing programs.”

Corey makes a face but doesn’t deny it. Liam can feel tension starting to crawl its way up his spine and he’s bracing for one or both of them to turn to _him_ , but before either of them can, there’s a sudden muted screech from the other side of the table, and Theo collapses down into the chair he’d just pulled out. He immediately drops his face into his hands and scrubs at his cheeks with his palms, his whole body just one big _slump._

“You are,” Mason informs him, punctuating his statement with a point of his fork in Theo’s direction, “very late.”

Theo squints one eye open. “Forgot to set an alarm,” he mutters, and even his _voice_ sounds sleep-rough and rasping. It does something to Liam’s already rubbed-raw nerves.

It turns his attempted joke that, “That doesn’t sound like you at _all,_ ” because it _doesn’t,_ Theo’s one of the most compulsively on-top-of-his-shit people Liam _knows_ , into something else; an accusation. 

Theo’s easy expression tightens, some. He shrugs, and drops his hands away from his face as he replies, “Happens to the best of us,” neutrally and without looking at Liam.

He layers his right hand over his left forearm as he does it, so that it half-covers his tattoos, and then _digs_ the heel of his palm into them. Liam winces.

But he’s rescued from the tension he’d so _stupidly_ created when Malia suddenly appears on Theo’s other side. She looks even more sleepy than he does, and she wastes no time in pulling up the chair on Theo’s immediate right so that it’s right next to him, and then she drops down into it and flops over to smoosh her cheek into his shoulder. She closes her eyes, and gives a giant, jaw-cracking yawn.

Theo glances over at her in amusement, his face softening out of its too-careful mask. “What time did you end up getting in last night?”

“Dunno,” she mutters, her eyes still closed. “Scott’s dad’s latest bail jumper just would not stop _running._ ”

Corey snorts and comments, “I wonder _why_ ,” low and dryly. Malia cracks open an eye and glares at him; Corey smiles winsomely right back at her.

“Hey, do what you gotta,” Stiles opines, appearing over her shoulder with a plate just _loaded_ with an assortment of danishes and scraggly bacon and an apple he’d retrieved from—somewhere, though Liam has no idea where, because there definitely wasn’t any on the buffet. “I mean, _someone’s_ got to keep Scott in fun patterned scrubs.”

“ _Yeah,_ they do!” Scott suddenly exclaims as Stiles reclaims his seat next to Lydia’s bag, popping up at their table with an alarming lack of warning. He bends over Malia—and therefore kind of over Theo, too, given their relative positions—and smacks a kiss to her cheek. Liam can hear her grumble, even though he can’t see her under the absurd drape of Scott’s gown, but it’s almost entirely for show; her scent warms. 

They’re technically out of chairs so Scott borrows one from a neighboring table—apologizing charmingly to the bemused and in the end in fact thoroughly charmed tenants—and wedges himself into the last bit of free space left at theirs. Intentionally or not it puts him in between Liam and Theo; Liam ends up dropping his eyes back down to his plate, and picking listlessly at the remnants of his breakfast there. 

He doesn’t miss the way that Theo’s scent—his whole _posture_ —seems to ease, though.

They spend another half-hour or so at the breakfast and then a harried-looking school official whose glasses seem to be permanently askew rushes into the hall to start rushing all of the graduating seniors _out_ of it, and to the actual commencement ceremony. Ms. McCall shoos her son away—though only _after_ pulling him in for a tight, _tight_ hug, her eyes glimmering wetly in the lights of the room—and then she stands around like an impatient drill sergeant waiting for the rest of the pack to clear their plates; to push in their chairs and grab all their stuff; to actually be ready to leave to troop over to the ceremony themselves.

It’s _packed._

Not just the stadium itself—though Liam knows, intellectually, that the stadium will be _worse_ —but the grounds leading up to it and the sidewalks leading up to the grounds and just the whole _campus,_ seemingly. It makes sense—UCLA Davis’ student population clocks in at around thirty-five thousand—but Liam still finds his teeth gritting, his spine stiffening.

He keeps having to stop his _eyes_ from flaring, of all absurd things. He curls his fingertips in against his palms as they prickle with the threat of his claws.

And then he _startles_ when he feels someone brush up against him. He jerks and stares up at Theo, who’d grabbed one of the doors into the vestibule area surrounding the stadium and is currently holding it open for Liam. Theo had positioned his arm high enough on the door that he’s all but blocking Liam from sight, the bulk of his body serving as an effective barrier for everyone behind him. His eyes search Liam’s face.

“You okay?” Theo murmurs quietly.

Over his shoulder, Corey has apparently forgotten that he’d been trying to play his interest cool and is quizzing Ms. McCall on her nursing school experience. Mason isn’t talking to anyone about law school, thank god, but Deaton had joined their little group and he and Mason and Lydia are all talking about Council law; Derek occasionally joins in with a comment here or there. 

“I’m fine,” Liam replies automatically, then: “You’re blocking the doorway.”

Theo frowns at him, eyes narrow, but Liam’s not actually _wrong;_ there’s a clump starting to form up behind them as people wait to get inside. Theo releases the door, and follows Liam through it.

“Everyone look for Section 216!” Ms. McCall half-yells over the noise of the crowd. “Noah and Rafael said they saved a whole row for us!”

Liam had ended up in the lead, somehow, so he keeps his eyes peeled for the section markers over the various stairwells down into the stadium itself. The whole time that he’s checking numbers and trying to decide if they’re even going in the right _direction_ —with the rest of the milling students and their various entourages crowding the area, it is actually nearly impossible to find the markers to figure out whether they’re ascending or descending—he can feel eyes on his back. 

_Theo’s_ eyes on his back, he’s pretty sure. It’s not a feeling he’s necessarily forgotten, though it _is_ a memory that his mind has to dust off, a little; has to clear the cobwebs from.

But he finds Section 216, eventually, and leads the pack down the concrete steps. The Sheriff waves when he spots them, and Liam beelines it to his left. 

“Hey!” The Sheriff greets, and claps him on the shoulder. He’s wearing a smile so wide that it’s taking over nearly his entire face, and he uses his grip on Liam to shake him back and forth a little; the scent of his excitement—his unabashed, unadulterated _pride_ —bubbles and pops on the back of Liam’s tongue. “Hey, c’mon, this way!” He gestures the rest of the pack in front of himself, into the row.

Still, his grip on Liam means that Liam is one of the last ones in. He means to grab a spot next to Mason, but everyone keeps shifting places as they finish conversations, or start new ones; as they lean around each other to call down the row about this or that and then give up on yelling and go to talk directly to whoever it was they were trying to address. By pure coincidence Liam winds up by Malia at one point, and he doesn’t realize what a _mistake_ that is until he glances up at her to find her frowning down at him.

“What’s wrong with you?” She demands, her eyes narrow on his face.

“What?” Liam squawks immediately. “What, nothing.”

Malia’s nostrils flare. Her eyes get even _more_ narrow. She opens her mouth, no doubt to call bullshit, but she’s suddenly interrupted by Theo snaking his way between them; he’d climbed up into the row above them, and is only now hopping back down. He rolls his eyes when both Malia and Liam startle and look at him.

“I am not,” he declares, “sitting between Mason and Stiles for the duration of this ceremony. Stiles is just winding him up about criminal law theory on _purpose,_ now.”

 _Malia_ rolls her eyes, but twists around to demand that everyone to her left shift down into Theo’s now-vacated seat. It leaves Theo and Liam standing next to each other in a sudden awkward bout of silence; Theo glances at him, and then away. 

He doesn’t touch his tattoos, though. Liam feels _surprise_ briefly blank the snarled-up mess of _whatever_ that’s still sitting high up in his chest like a _rock_. 

They take their seats. 

The ceremony is _long,_ of course, and Scott’s buried in the middle. The pack spends most of the intervening time chatting idly with each other about everything and nothing—everyone _still_ leaning over and around each other to reach their intended conversation recipient—but every now and then they’ll join in random bursts of clapping, or cheering, when other graduating seniors’ names are announced.

Each time they do, it puts the tattoos on Theo’s left forearm on display.

Liam hadn’t thought about it when they’d sat down, but being on Theo’s right means that he _sees_ _them_ even when he’s not actively looking for them; they appear stark and black out of the corner of his eye. Stark and black and not at all faded by sun or time or _anything;_ they’re exactly the same color of dark that they had been when Theo had stood across from Scott and Argent in the Council’s barn and had offered out his forearm to be permanently, _forever_ marked. 

Liam has to keep jerking his attention away from them, his fingers curling in around the edges of his chair’s armrests. 

It’s maybe the third or fourth time it happens that Theo suddenly reaches over, and wraps the fingers of his right hand around _Liam’s_ left forearm. “Hey,” he murmurs, pitched low so that it’ll get lost among the general cacophony of the ceremony. 

That’s all he says, just that _hey,_ but his eyes are searching; his grip is firm. Liam finds himself staring back. If it was Liam’s forearm that was tattooed instead of Theo’s, Theo’s fingers would be all but covering them. 

“Careful,” Liam blurts out before he can stop himself. “If you keep talking to me like this, you’re going to use up your quota for interacting with me for like, the next _month_.”

Theo’s expression flickers with surprise, and Liam can _see_ him deciding whether to retreat back into his—perfectly polite, and perfectly unobjectionable, and _perfectly infuriating_ —shell, but then he—doesn’t. His lips curl in a seemingly helpless smirk, and while he looks briefly away from Liam, he also immediately looks _back._

“I’ll find a way to survive,” he assures Liam dryly.

He also releases Liam’s forearm, but then leaves his own on the armrest next to it. It’s not a big space: they end up pressed pretty firmly together. The result is that Liam can feel Theo’s pulse beating up against his own skin, and muscle, and it’s—grounding. Liam hadn’t even realized how stiffly he’d been sitting in his admittedly uncomfortable stadium chair until he feels himself _slumping_ a little more into it. He tries to exhale out his latest breath in a _silent,_ if shaky, stream, but—there’s no way that Theo doesn’t hear it.

Almost on cue: “What is it?” Theo wonders. He’s still speaking quietly enough, and he’s kept his own posture _relaxed_ enough, that none of the rest of the pack seem to be noticing them; they’re in their own little bubble.

Behind Theo, Ms. McCall is dreamily murmuring, “ _A full-ride scholarship to vet school,_ ” and Argent and her ex-husband are laughing. Corey and Mason aren’t talking about their graduate school plans anymore, but they _are_ bent over Mason’s phone and comparing potential law school and nursing school locations, looking for overlap. 

“There’s just—a lot of people,” Liam eventually answers, giving Theo _a_ truth if not _the_ truth. He flicks his eyes back up to Theo’s from where they’d fallen past him.

Theo frowns, but it’s not accusatory, just curious. “UCLA is like, ten thousand students larger than Davis.”

“Yeah,” Liam agrees, “but I don’t usually _see them_ all at once, do I?”

Theo considers this for a moment, and then shrugs, granting him the point. Liam can tell he’s not fully satisfied, but his interest seems benign; toothless. The kind of easy concern you grant to the people in your life who you care about, but who you trust to tell you when something’s going on; when it isn’t. Theo side-eyes him when he notices Liam’s continued attention and then grins, a little, just this tiny little quirk of the corner of his mouth.

Liam wants to put his _own_ mouth to that quirk, suddenly and fiercely.

He jerks away. Not just his head, but his whole _body;_ his forearm that’d been resting against Theo’s. Theo jolts in surprise and for a moment his arm _follows_ Liam’s, and then he seems to remember himself and he stops. He clears his throat, and reverses direction to cross his arms over his chest instead as he settles a little deeper into his chair, and looks away from Liam. He fixes his eyes back on the ceremony happening on the field below, and keeps them there.

 _No, I didn’t mean—,_ Liam thinks, and can feel how stricken his own expression is, though Theo isn’t— _won’t_ —look at him to see it. Liam finds himself hunching over before he can stop himself, his shoulders curling in over his knees. He tangles his fingers together between them, and then _squeezes_ them hard against each other. 

But after a minute or so he can’t help himself; he tips his head just slightly sideways, though he keeps his eyes glued to the ground, and mutters, “Thanks.”

Theo glances over at him then. Liam can sense it, and his eyes flick automatically and helplessly up to meet Theo’s. They stare at each other for a few long seconds, and then Theo’s lips flicker in a small smile. It’s not quite the same quirk as before, but it’s _close;_ Liam just immediately shuts down his thoughts about it before they can risk going down the same path as before. Instead he watches as Theo shifts in his seat some; uncurling.

He rests his forearm back on the armrest between them. 

“Sure,” he says, then: “Anytime.” 

Liam searches his face, a little taken aback, but he’s—pretty sure Theo _means that._ Means it _literally._ He finds himself smiling back, and then _he_ leans back in his seat.

He drops his forearm back onto the armrest, too; pressing it up against Theo’s own and leaving it there.

\---

Liam steps through the door into the animal clinic to find Scott and Deaton already there and bent over—Liam squints— _Scott’s_ laptop, rather than the clinic’s, their eyes roving as they apparently study something on screen. They’re distracted enough that Liam can grind to a confused halt as the door swings shut behind him, the little bell chiming a second time, and pull out his phone with his free hand to check the time.

But no, it still says 8:58, clear as day. “Okay,” he announces, even as he’s navigating over to his text thread with Scott to quadruple-check, because the latte he’s holding in his other hand is starting to feel like _contraband._ “I am _not_ late. You definitely—you did!” He exclaims, holding up his phone and waggling it face-out towards Scott and Deaton as they both jump and look up at him. “You said 9:00!”

Scott looks adorably baffled for a second, his eyes flicking between Liam still holding his phone out like an accusation, and his laptop that he and Deaton had been so intently looking at, and then he exclaims, “Oh!,” and grins, wide and easy. 

He shakes his head lightly, his grin going a little lopsided.

“You’re right,” he agrees, and now his tongue burrows a little into his cheek as he acknowledges, “You’re _not_ late. This is—” he gestures towards the laptop, “—for something else.”

Now Liam’s curious. He comes forward—knocking his hip into the half-closed mountain ash gate to open it the rest of the way as he goes—so that he can swing around and look at Scott’s laptop as well as he wonders, “What’s the _something else_?”

Scott and Deaton have a map app open in a browser window, with a handful of pins already dropped to mark locations that they’re apparently interested in. Liam recognizes the pin over Nina’s Lake Tahoe house, and he’s _pretty sure_ one of the ones nearer the East Coast is close to where Cassidy’s family and pack lives, weirdly, but he doesn’t recognize the others at first glance. He switches his gaze to Scott, frowning lightly.

“Theo,” Scott explains, leaning his hip against the edge of Deaton’s desk and loosely crossing his arms. “Lydia needs an artifact that he’s got stored away for an experiment she wants to perform, so he’s taking it to her.”

Liam looks back down at the map, and then feels compelled to point out the obvious. “Okay, but none of those pins—” he starts to gesture towards the screen, and only _just_ manages to stop himself when he realizes he’d been about to do it with the hand he’s using to hold his coffee, “—are anywhere _near_ Boston. Also, you know,” he adds, “there are _pins,_ plural.”

Scott’s lips twitch. Deaton’s expression changes about a _millimeter_ in the direction of wry. “No kidding,” Scott observes dryly, then bumps Liam in the shoulder with his own and reaches forward to close his laptop. He explains, “Theo agreed to make some pit stops along the way.” 

“Pit stops,” Liam repeats vaguely, and then it hits him. His eyes widen as his mouth drops open in disbelief. “You’re _joking._ He’s _driving_ to Boston? From _California?_ ”

“That he is,” Scott agrees, amicably enough. He’s also _distracted;_ the clinic phone had rung, and he’d made a seemingly reflexive move to answer it before Deaton had waved him off, and picked it up himself.

“Why?” Liam presses, unsure exactly why he’s so disturbed by the idea. “Reliable air transportation has been a thing for like, a century.”

Scott finishes sliding his laptop into his backpack, the latter leaned up against the side of Deaton’s desk, and then shrugs as he straightens. “Theo said something about not wanting to risk flying the artifact. And,” he adds, apparently because he can see that Liam is _far_ from fully satisfied, “it also gives him the opportunity to stop by some of our allied packs, and hunter clans. Chris and Alan both have some important items they don’t want to risk sending through the mail, so Theo offered to drop them off or pick them up on his way.”

“‘Offered,’ huh,” Liam finds himself muttering, staring sightlessly down at where Scott’s laptop—with its browser window showing the map and all its pins—is now tucked away. 

He drags his gaze back upwards to find Scott studying him. He flinches a little, and flushes as he looks away and brings his coffee up to his mouth to take a long, seemingly-casual drink.

Scott doesn’t push, thankfully.

But he _does_ duck his head so that he can catch Liam’s eyes—Liam startling a little and looking helplessly, reflexively back—as his mouth curves up in a small, soft smile. “Hey,” he murmurs, once he seems satisfied that he has Liam’s attention. “I wanted to say thank you for this.”

Now Liam _really_ colors. He jerks his gaze away from Scott’s. “It’s not a big deal,” he mutters.

But he has to look back the next second, because Scott reaches out, and gets a finger on Liam’s jaw, and turns Liam’s head back forward. “Except it is,” he counters, and while his voice is still easy, it’s also _steel-lined._ Liam swallows. Scott’s finger on his jaw feels like a _brand_ somehow, Liam’s so hyper-aware of it. 

He forces himself to shrug. “We’re a pack, right?” He tries instead. “We—help each other out. Share the load.”

“Yeah,” Scott agrees easily enough, “we do,” but there’s something to his tone that hints at still waters; his eyes are still fixed on Liam’s face, thoughtful and searching.

Luckily Deaton comes back right about then, the clinic’s cordless phone—which always seems like such a _relic,_ to Liam’s constant amusement—still in his hand. He sets it back in its cradle as he tells Scott, “The Taylors need to reschedule their appointment for this afternoon.” Scott nods and reaches for the _clinic’s_ laptop, tucked away in a corner of the desk.

Deaton turns to Liam, who has to fight not to stiffen under the attention.

“I thought we might start with some background on the current Councilmembers,” he explains, and picks up a book he’d had already sitting on the edge of his desk. His lips quirk in his quintessentially Deaton way as he shoots a knowing, sly look at Scott. “Hopefully any major crises necessitating a Council meeting will happen only when Scott is on break, but if not, it never hurts to understand who you’re dealing with.”

Liam’s throat is very dry. He tries to swallow, can’t, and chokes down a quick mouthful of his coffee so that he can manage, “Right, sure. Makes—makes sense.”

If Liam didn’t know better, he’d say Deaton’s answering small smile is sympathetic. He gestures Liam ahead of him, towards the exam room in the back, as he begins to explain, “Araya and Shohreh you’re already familiar with. They’ll be the two you’ll primarily be advising, should you need to step in for Scott at a meeting, but depending on the issues you may require the backing of some of the others—”

It’s coming up on noon by the time Deaton calls a halt. Liam finds himself feeling exactly like he used to at the end of his _Colonialism and the Conquest of Knowledge_ seminars; like his brain has been stuffed full of so much new information that it’s leaking out of his ears. Scott claps him on both shoulders and shakes him a little in solidarity, his expression one big sympathetic grimace that says he _gets it,_ that he really _knows,_ and then Scott leaves him to collect himself and his chaotic spill of notes—the half-full spiral notebook he’d brought nearer to just _full,_ now—as he goes to talk to Deaton. Liam’s grateful for the courtesy; he feels a little like he’s in shock.

Still, he overhears Scott’s and Deaton’s conversation. 

He overhears it when they mention _Theo._

“You’ll be seeing Mr. Raeken later on, no?” Deaton is querying Scott. At Scott’s assenting nod Deaton turns to search through an orderly stack of books, and slides one free. “Would you mind bringing this to him? I borrowed it from Anita some time ago and would appreciate him returning it while he’s there, if he doesn’t mind.”

“Sure,” Scott says, and starts reaching forward to accept the book Deaton is offering out. “I’ll take it to—”

“I can do it,” Liam finds himself blurting out. Scott and Deaton both pause, and turn to look at him. The sudden focused attention is a little alarming but Liam powers through it, insisting, “I was going to see him anyway, and I know _you_ —” he says, switching from completely making shit up to latching onto a minor detail Scott had shared earlier, “—had wanted to go check on the Nemeton with Derek this afternoon, so. So.” He shuts himself up, and stands there looking a little wide-eyed back at them, waiting.

“So,” Scott agrees absently. He glances at Deaton, who glances back at him, and then after a few long seconds Scott shrugs. 

He accepts the book from Deaton, and then immediately holds it out towards Liam. 

“You sure you don’t mind?” He probes, even as he is. His eyes are sharp on Liam’s face, and a step _beyond_ curious, really; searching.

So: “Yeah,” Liam agrees, reaching forward to take the book at the same time that he snags his backpack strap, and starts dragging it off of the table and onto his shoulder.

He hadn’t finished zipping it up so there’s a fraught moment where everything inside decides if it wants to spill out all over the clinic floor. Luckily Liam manages to juggle it back upright and get it settled onto his shoulder without incident. Still, Scott and Deaton are watching him when he straightens up.

“Anyway, um,” Liam mumbles, flushing a little. “If—we’re good?”

Deaton’s expression doesn’t change. Scott just spends a few more seconds studying Liam’s face, and then he agrees, “We’re good. But, hey,” he says, snagging Liam’s arm as Liam goes to rush past him. Liam staggers to an unsteady stop and looks, wide-eyed, up at him. “Thanks, again. Really.”

The smile that curves up the corners of Liam’s mouth is automatic, and quick, but genuine. His thoughts still feel jittery and his brain overfull, but when he tells Scott, “Yeah. Yeah, you’re welcome,” he means it.

Scott lets him go with his own quick smile, and then turns back to Deaton to start talking to him again; a benign dismissal. 

Liam doesn’t waste it. He hurries out of the clinic with his backpack over one shoulder, and the book meant for Theo folded carefully against his chest.

\--- 

Theo caves to Liam’s—admittedly!—ridiculous demand to join him on his trip _way_ easier than Liam had thought he would. Even as he’d been hurriedly stuffing whatever random clothes he could get his hands on into a bag after he’d left Theo at the sheriff’s station, Liam had prepared for it to all be for naught; for Theo to _still_ say no, and leave Liam on the sidewalk with whatever remained of his dignity. 

But then he’d said _fine,_ all aggrieved tone of voice, and he’d stood around in front of his car’s hood with his arms crossed and one foot all but tapping as he waited for Liam to haul the two duffel bags he’d packed—along with the part he’d stolen from Theo’s car—down the street. 

And when Liam had gotten there, and offered out the part to Theo’s car with a deliberate flourish, Theo’s lips had twitched. He’d grinned.

Only for the split second it’d taken him to roll his eyes in exaggerated fashion, and reach forward to snatch the part away from him. “Go put your bags in the trunk,” he’d ordered, and then he’d refused Liam’s offer to point out where in Theo’s engine he’d taken the part _from,_ like he didn’t want Liam getting anywhere near his car’s internals again. 

_Liam_ had grinned.

It doesn’t take Theo long to replace the part, and then he’s appearing around the other side of his car as Liam is determinedly stuffing his bags in next to Theo’s. There’s less of them than Liam expected for a _little over two weeks, maybe_ road trip, but after he thinks about it for a second Liam’s only surprised by his surprise: Theo’s always been a weirdly minimalist type, and Liam would almost admire it if he wasn’t convinced it was rooted in Theo’s worst complexes, rather than some principled take on consumerism, or whatever.

Anyway, it means there’s plenty of room for Liam’s bags in the trunk but Theo _still_ winds up unsatisfied with his packing strategy, and he shoulders Liam out of the way so he can take over. Liam’s _fully_ prepared to stand around making fun of him for it, only Theo then tips his head sideways so that he’s looking at Liam, his body still half-bent over the edge of his car’s trunk, and he says, “Go call Scott.”

“...what?” Liam manages, after a confused second.

Theo just gives him a dry look, and then widens his eyes pointedly as he repeats, “ _Go call Scott._ ” He turns back to the bags then, and starts fussing with them again—even though _seriously,_ they’re _fine;_ they were fine before Theo insisted on messing with them in the first place—as he explains, “I don’t need to be read the riot act later about how I kidnapped his beta without warning, or whatever.”

“What the hell,” Liam says, “That’s _absurd,_ ” because it is, then: “And you didn’t say _anything_ about calling Scott!”

“I’m renegotiating our deal,” Theo retorts, his eyes still on his fussing hands. But then he suddenly tightens his fingers around the strap of one of _Liam’s_ bags, and gives it a pointed little tug, though not enough to actually move it. Just enough to deliver the threat: that Theo would happily pull Liam’s bags back _out_ of his trunk, if Liam tried to argue. “Now,” Theo tells him, when he sees that Liam has caught on, “ _call_ him.”

Liam glowers right back at Theo. For a petty moment he legitimately considers whether he even still _wants_ to go on Theo’s stupid trip, but. 

But.

But Theo is still looking at him with his expression one big _challenge,_ gauntlet thrown down like he expects Liam to—think exactly what he’s thinking. Liam’s jaw clenches. He squares his shoulders, and then about-faces, one hand sliding down to retrieve his phone from his pocket as he stalks away.

He hears Theo blow out a low, slow breath behind him.

Scott only answers a split-second before the call would have rolled through to voicemail—Liam wondering what the hell kind of stalemate that would have left him and Theo in _then_ —and the line crackles, a little, the quality of the call shitty. _He’s in the Preserve,_ Liam realizes, even before Scott is greeting, “Hey, Liam! What’s up?”

“Why are you in the Preserve?” Liam blurts out, before he can help himself. 

Scott doesn’t seem to care that Liam’s interrogation is unprompted. Even without being able to see him Liam’s pretty sure he just shrugged easily. “Derek and I thought we spotted something when we were out here a few days ago, so we wanted to check it out in daylight.” Scott gives it a second—Liam can hear Derek call a curious question, which Scott must wave off—and then he prompts again, though gently: “What’s up?”

“Oh,” Liam mumbles, flushing a little and feeling _immediately_ grateful that Scott isn’t there to see it, though chances are Scott can _hear it_ in his voice. “Oh, I, um. I just wanted to let you know that I—am going with Theo on his trip?”

He doesn’t mean to make it a question but the end tips up into one regardless. Liam winces; he thinks he understands why Theo made him call Scott, now, and it’s entirely possible it hadn’t had anything to do with _Scott,_ at all. 

“Oh,” Scott echoes, sounding equally surprised. 

“If it’s a problem—” Liam starts to say, _panic_ bolting sharp through him.

“What?” Scott interrupts, then: “Oh! No. No, it’s not a problem at all.”

“Are you—” _sure,_ Liam starts to press, because now he’s remembering the soft firm way that Scott had said _thank you_ at the clinic during Liam’s first lesson with Deaton: the lessons Liam was supposed to be _continuing_ during the time he’d now be gone. “Because I can—”

“No,” Scott interrupts, and firmly. “Don’t worry about it,” he orders, like he can read Liam’s mind. “Besides,” he adds, and now he sounds a little cheerful; a little sly, “I mean, this way you learn by _doing,_ right?”

“That’s what I told him!” Liam crows, _relief_ bursting like a bubble in his chest. He doesn’t realize that he’d just accidentally admitted that Theo hadn’t been—potentially still _isn’t_ —fully on-board with Liam crashing his trip until after he’s said it, but Scott doesn’t call him on it.

Instead he just says, “Actually, I’m glad you’re going,” and it sounds like a confession.

“What?” Liam replies immediately, and with a reflexive glance over his shoulder at where Theo is now leaning back against his closed trunk, his arms loosely crossed and his gaze—elsewhere. Liam can’t actually tell whether he’s listening or not, though he _could_ be; Liam’s not far enough away to avoid Theo’s supernatural hearing if Theo actually put some effort into it. “Why?”

Scott doesn’t respond right away, but then he blows out a rougher-sounding breath and says, “Theo’s Theo, you know?,” like Liam is supposed to know what that means. Except Liam has the sneaking suspicion that he knows _exactly_ what that means. “But I’m glad he’s not going alone.”

Scott doesn’t specify whether he’s glad that Theo isn’t going alone so that Theo couldn’t— _whatever,_ descend into a melancholy pit of self-reflection all alone out there on the open road, or whether Scott means that he’s literally glad that Theo isn’t going alone so that he won’t, you know, be _alone_ when he meets with their allied packs and clans. In any case the admission takes Liam by surprise, the nervousness that’d bubbled up in his chest quieted with the force of it, and he finds that _he’s_ glad; glad that Scott admitted it, maybe, even if Liam’s still not entirely sure what Scott just admitted.

“Anyway,” Scott says, clearing his throat. “Seriously, don’t worry about anything here, huh?” He sounds like he comes perilously close to saying something like _have fun,_ thus completing his transformation into Pack Dad™, but then he just concludes, “We’ll see you when you get back.”

“Yeah,” Liam agrees, more than a little inanely. “Yeah, we’ll—see you.”

He hangs up.

Theo had migrated around from the back of his car to the driver’s seat when Liam comes back, so Liam hesitates for just a _second_ on the sidewalk, and then he climbs into the passenger seat. Theo glances over at him as Liam is yanking his door back shut behind himself, and there’s something—a little cautious in his look. His nostrils flare and Liam knows for a _fact_ that Theo is trying to scent him—trying to get some sense of how irritated Liam might be with him, and his demand that Liam call Scott—but even as he’s doing that, his lips are curling up in a tentative smile, like he’s prepared for Liam to be angry with him but he’s also maybe hoping Liam _isn’t,_ and he’s waiting for some kind of sign as to which he should act on.

Like now that he’d covered some kind of base—gotten somebody’s permission—he’s prepared to let himself enjoy the unexpected turn his day had taken.

Liam smiles.

It’s not even a conscious thing, his body just _does it._ The cramped anxious _whatever_ that’d been pricking at him during his call with Scott bursts right back into thedisbelieving _excitement_ he’d felt when Theo had said _fine,_ and he suddenly can’t sit still anymore. He reaches forward and drums on the dashboard, a sudden frenetic beat—a sudden frenetic beat that he _remembers,_ viscerally and all at once, the Ghost Riders behind them and Theo next to him and the key to the sheriff’s cruiser finally found—and he _whoops_ a little.

“Well what are we _waiting_ for?” He demands, and grins at Theo. He barely manages to stop himself from yelling _go, go, go,_ but there’s a look on Theo’s face that says he hears it anyway; that he’s remembering, too. 

Theo watches him a little longer, and then he laughs a little and shakes his head. When he looks away it’s not to touch his tattoos, but to reach forward and start the car. 

They go.

\---

Liam wakes up with a start, and for a moment he has no idea where he is. 

It’s disorienting, _terrifying,_ and he can feel himself start to reflexively shift when he—catches Theo’s sleep-slow heartbeat from down the hallway in Nina’s Lake Tahoe home. He lets his head thunk heavily back onto the pillow below it as he just tries to _breathe_ past the closed-up feeling of his tight throat, the tensed-up clench of his muscles; his fingers wound reflexively, _achingly_ in the bedspread below his hands.

He keeps his ears fixed on Theo’s heartbeat, and tries—best he can—to slow his own to match it. 

But he can’t. But there are too many other heartbeats in the house, all of them various flavors of unfamiliar, and everytime he thinks he’s isolated Theo’s— _his_ pack’s—from those of Nina’s, the house creaks on its foundations or someone snuffles, and he loses track of it. His pulse rockets back up. 

Eventually Liam gives up, and sits up to swing his legs over the side of the guest bed.

Lake Tahoe is almost pitch-black this late, and with only the barest threads of moonlight managing to filter through the lazy cloud cover. It’s not _chilly,_ exactly—it’s Nevada in the summer—but there’s a slight breeze coming off the water and Liam is only wearing thin cotton sleep pants and a t-shirt. He shivers. 

He keeps picking his way down to the edge of the water.

For a moment he considers just dropping right down on the shore, but these are the _only_ sleep pants he’d snagged in his hurry to catch Theo before he left, and the last thing he needs is to accidentally fill them with sand. Luckily there’s a handful of thick-plasticked Adirondack chairs tucked up by the dunes, so Liam grabs one and drags it down until the water is lapping at the front legs, and _then_ he sits. He starts out idly kicking his feet in the water—the legs of his pants pulled up—but before long he lifts them out instead, bringing his knees up to his chest and wrapping his arms around them as he drops his chin onto his left kneecap. He stares out over the slowly rippling lake.

He nearly brains himself on his own knee when he hears someone coming up behind him maybe fifteen minutes or so later, he whips around so fast.

Nina smiles apologetically.

“Hey,” Liam greets, the word coming out more as a puff of air as he works to catch his breath; to calm his sudden raging adrenaline levels. It’s only as they start to come down that he realizes what must have happened, and he winces. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

 _Wake you,_ which he definitely had, because he’s a werewolf from another pack wandering around Nina’s territory—her _house,_ where her husband and her pack are asleep—at night. She’d probably woken up the instant that he had. She’d _definitely_ woken up when he’d been trying his apparently-ineffectual best to sneak out of the house without disturbing anyone else.

“It’s alright,” Nina offers softly, before he can complete his apology. She’s got a thin woolen blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Liam recognizes it from its pattern; she must have snagged it from the back of the living area’s couch as she followed him down to the water. As he watches, she tightens it around her body as she continues to walk towards him, and then gives him a little grin. 

She comes to a stop by his chair, and takes a moment to stare silently out over the water, too. 

It’s then that Liam realizes there’s nowhere for her to _sit,_ unless she wants to do so directly in the sand like he’d decided against earlier. “Oh!” He yelps, and scrambles out of his chair to then scramble up the shore, and go retrieve a second. 

“Liam, it’s really—” Nina tries to tell him, but Liam has already dragged another chair over by the time she gets to the third word, so instead she just laughs softly, and thanks him, and sits. 

She’s graceful about it. Weirdly elegant even in so mundane a movement as she flicks the blanket she’s wearing wide, so that it settles around her in sinuous waves as she lowers herself down. Liam watches and feels the most _ridiculous_ flare of envy. When he climbs back into his own chair he feels like a _child_ in comparison. 

_Immeasurably_ young. Not quite naïve, exactly, but certainly a pale comparison of the settled, sure _steadiness_ that seems to be embodied in everything Nina is and does. He looks down at his hands.

Nina doesn’t push him, even though it’s clear she understands that _something_ drove him out here in the middle of the night. Instead she breathes out as she settles back in the chair Liam had retrieved for her, her whole body seeming to relax into it as her eyes go half-lidded, and she stares out over the water. If she flared her eyes, Liam bets she’d be able to see almost to the other side of the _shore._

“Did you always know you were going to be an alpha?” He finds himself asking, and then he _blanches._

Nina rolls her head along the chair back to look at him. Thankfully she doesn’t look insulted, or even perturbed; just an easy sort of curious. Liam feels some of his reflexive panic at his unthinking prying start to ebb, though he can still hear Theo saying: _see, that right there is exactly why you_ don’t _get to come. You’d_ cause _a diplomatic incident._

Nina studies him for a few seconds longer, and then she hums and turns her attention back forward, to the water. She tells him, “I did, actually. Or I knew the chances were so high as to practically be guaranteed, anyway.” She looks back over at him. “Why?”

Liam _tries_ to keep looking back at her, but he can’t. And he _definitely_ can’t if he actually wants to ask the new question burning on the tip of his tongue, so he winds up asking the whites of his tightly-tangled knuckles, “Did you always _want_ to be an alpha?” in barely more than a whisper.

 _That_ seems to stun her a little more than his first question. When Liam tips his head just slightly sideways to peek out at her, her expression is a little tighter. Her mouth is dropped slightly open. Her eyes are narrow. She’s not _his_ alpha but Liam still feels his shoulders hunching in some under the weight of her attention, like it has an actual physical _presence_. He’s about ninety-nine percent sure he just committed some kind of major cultural faux-pas, and his only saving grace is that Theo isn’t here to see it and realize how completely right he’d been about not wanting to bring Liam on this trip.

But his reaction actually seems to snap Nina out of it. She blinks and—shakes her head some, and when she smiles at him next it’s apologetic. She looks away from him, back out over the water, and her fingers rise from where they’d settled on the arms of her chair to wind in the edges of the blanket she’s wearing as she pulls it a little tighter around herself.

She doesn’t answer for a while.

Long enough that Liam thinks she _isn’t_ going to answer—that the way she was going to let him out of his social misstep was just to pretend it hadn’t happened, which is an opportunity Liam is _fully_ prepared to seize on—except then she exhales out a low, thoughtful breath, and asks him in turn, “Is it too much of a cop-out if I say I don’t know?”

Liam jolts and ends up meeting her eyes solely on reflex. Her expression is rueful; a little self-deprecating. The corners of her lips quirk up when she sees Liam is looking back at her.

“I was born a werewolf,” she explains, almost apologetically. “My father was alpha before me, and—” She doesn’t say whatever comes after that _and,_ but she shrugs. Liam nods to show that he gets it. 

Or at least best he can, anyway. He remembers Nejla’s—another born wolf’s—silent shorthand for _bitten werewolf_ , and has to stop himself from silently clicking his teeth together.

And then Nina admits, soft and almost confessional: “Some days are harder than others, though.”

She’s not looking at him when he glances over; her eyes are back on the water. Earlier when they’d first arrived Nina and Theo had disappeared into Nina’s study together, and when they’d come back out Theo’s expression—the posture of his whole _body_ —had been tight. _What is it?_ Liam had demanded, abandoning the lacrosse game he’d inserted himself into it just as quickly as he’d joined it. _What’s wrong?_

 _Nothing,_ Theo had replied immediately, then—seeing Liam’s face, maybe; actually thinking about it, perhaps—he’d relented and said, _Nina asked about Oregon._

He’d meant Chemult, of course. He’d meant _Quentin._ Back during Theo’s trial the McCall pack had yet to get to really know Nina and her pack, but thinking back Liam can recognize the red-eyed woman in his memories who’d looked ready to intercede during the tattooing ceremony, when there’d been an open question whether Quentin was going to try and fight the Council’s ruling on Scott’s offer to take responsibility for Theo after all. 

He can recognize the split-second glance he’d caught of her face as Derek had been dragging him out of the courtroom _before_ that, right after Theo had been sentenced to death. 

It’d been tight; unhappy. Trapped, maybe, though that could just be Liam’s perspective coloring it in hindsight.

“How do you do it?” He asks her now, because he clearly can’t ask her _then._

Nina sighs, and this time when she rolls her head sideways to look at him it’s less graceful for the way she does it on a boneless neck. It feels more _honest,_ somehow, or at least less polished; it soothes something a little ragged in Liam’s chest. It lets him look back at her without flinching or turning away as she looks at him.

“I remind myself that _someone’s_ got to do it,” she says. “That if it’s not me, then it’s going to be someone else, and that maybe that _someone else_ won’t share my beliefs. My values.” She lets her gaze fall away from him for a moment. “They might not care about my people, or just _people,_ the way I do. So.”

She looks back at him, and gives him a small smile.

 _So,_ Liam wants to say, smooth and easy and the out Nina is giving him for this _mire_ of a conversation he’s pulled them both into, if he wants it, but what comes out of his mouth instead is: “You trust yourself that much?”

Nina’s expression spasms; he’s surprised her again. _Now_ he bets that he’s pushed her too far. _Now_ he bets that he’s pushed her right up to the edge of her patience and maybe even shoved her over with his prying. 

But Nina surprises _him_ again. She considers for a moment, her eyes flicking out over the water, and then she answers, “I trust myself enough,” as she turns back to face him. “Or,” she adds, and her lips flicker in a self-aware little smile. “I try to, anyway. I try to be,” she tells him, and with a look in her eye that’s a little too _knowing_ for Liam’s comfort, “the kind of person that can.”

Liam _stares_ at her. 

Nina lets him for a long, _long_ stretch of seconds. Then she pushes herself to her feet, and pokes a hand out of her blanket to offer it out to Liam as she says, “C’mon, we should both head back inside and try to get some more sleep. You won’t be much good as a co-pilot otherwise.” 

She says the last bit a little slyly, but it’s a joke she’s sharing; Liam finds himself grinning, even as he’s looking away, a little overwhelmed by—everything.

But he takes her hand, after. He lets her pull him up, and lead him back into the house.

\---

Liam would like to claim that he doesn’t flee to the bathroom in Theo’s former family’s restaurant as Theo is paying their—heavily discounted—check, but: he flees to the bathroom in Theo’s former family’s restaurant while Theo is paying their check.

His excuse had been perfectly sound—they were about to get on the road again, and Liam couldn’t even _imagine_ having to ask Theo to stop early because of him; he’d already messed up enough, even a grand total of less than forty-eight hours into this trip—but that’s not why he’d done it. Instead he plants his elbows over the sink in the thankfully single-occupancy bathroom, and turns the water on as cold as it can go, and waits until it’s practically _icy_ before splashing some on his face.

He leaves his arms and dripping face over the edge of the sink, after. He doesn’t reach for a paper towel to dry them off with.

 _Jesus, Liam. I always knew you could be an asshole, but I never pegged you for_ cruel _,_ Theo had spat at him. Liam presses the side of his face into his bicep, and squeezes his eyes shut.

 _What the hell were you_ thinking _?,_ Liam berates himself viciously. He’d known—he’d _known_ —how much of an open wound Theo’s stolen families were for him. He can still remember the _exact_ look on Theo’s face, years ago in Theo’s storage unit when he’d realized that Liam had stumbled upon his secret, the thick-stocked photo album resting open in Liam’s arms like an accusation. 

He can still recall the _exact_ self-deprecating—bordering on something sharper, something _darker_ —tone Theo had used as he’d confessed a few hours after: _the stuff_ —the trinkets, and mementos, and glass-framed photos that he’d hidden away— _I went back and stole later._

 _What the hell were you thinking?,_ Liam thinks again, but this time it’s just—exhausted. 

This time it’s just disappointed.

He straightens up, and grabs a handful of paper towels as he starts scrubbing his hands, and face, dry. He isn’t gentle about it; the rub of the thin-plyed paper towels over his skin feels like sandpaper. 

When he comes back out—having actually _used_ the bathroom, too, because his original excuse for fleeing to it still stood—he nearly runs right into someone waiting outside the door in his distraction. They’d been leaning against the wall absently humming to themselves, and they startle backwards just as quickly as he does to try and avoid the collision. 

Liam sucks in a few deep, shaky breaths afterwards, hands on his knees as he tries to shove down both his adrenaline levels _and_ the shift that’d tried to rise, and then he looks up, and looks straight at Lisbeth.

She’s clearly trying to recover herself, too, but the second she realizes who she’d almost run into—or who’d almost run into _her_ —her eyes narrow. Her lips purse, and her arms cross.

“Liam,” she greets, and her tone would be neutral if it weren’t for her expression. It’s not exactly unfriendly but it says she remembers interrupting his and Theo’s argument earlier, and that she’s not at _all_ unclear on whose side she stands.

In that moment she’s such a perfect encapsulation of a protective older sibling that Liam’s heart aches for Theo all over again.

“Uh. Hey, Lisbeth,” he manages, after a moment.

Liam doesn’t exactly know what to do, here. Lisbeth doesn’t say anything else, immediately, but it’s clear the conversation isn’t over; there’s an expectant weight to the silence between them, like a note held hovering in the air. Liam bites the inside of his lip _hard_ to keep himself from breaking it, though he can’t quite bring himself to meet her eyes as he waits.

Finally Lisbeth relents. “How come Theo’s never mentioned you?”

Liam bites _through_ the inside of his lip. He forces his jaw to unlock so he can release it, and—makes sure to lick the blood away from the outside of his bottom teeth so that Lisbeth won’t see it before he answers, as casually as he can, “I have no idea.”

Lisbeth’s eyes searching his are sharp; probing. She says, “Yes, you do.”

Liam _recoils._ His eyes flick to Theo across the restaurant, immediately paranoid, but Theo is—talking with Lorilyn, his whole face and body and _presence_ as open and easy as Liam’s ever seen it, his eyes crinkled up and his mouth split in a wide, wide grin. There’s no _question_ where his full focus is. He’s not paying any attention to Liam.

When Liam looks back at Lisbeth, she’s still steadily watching him. Regardless, Liam knows that _she_ knows _exactly_ what he just did; exactly where he looked. Liam swallows.

He tells her, “It’s complicated,” because it _is_.

Lisbeth just _scoffs,_ unimpressed. She challenges, “The way you look at him isn’t.”

Liam’s mouth drops open. He _stares._

“It’s—” he tries after a second, defaulting to _broken record_ because _seriously,_ what the hell else is he going to say?

But Lisbeth just raises her voice slightly to talk over him as she insists, “The way _he_ looks at—”

“ _Lisbeth,_ ” Liam interrupts, more sharply than he’d intended—more desperately—because he knows one thing for certain, and that’s that he can’t handle hearing how that sentence ends. 

She stops, and glares at him, but her silence is mutinous; entirely contingent on him saying something to satisfy her, and the way her concern for Theo—because that’s what this _is_ —is practically bleeding out of her pores. Liam wonders what kind of mask Theo’s tried to wear for Lisbeth and Lorilyn and Elliot—his _family,_ stolen as it’d been from him—all these years. 

He wonders if Theo knows that Lisbeth, at least, has entirely seen through it.

“It’s complicated,” he repeats, more quietly, because it’s the truth and because the truth is, at this point, all he’s got.

Lisbeth seems to realize that. Or she seems to realize that that’s all _he_ thinks he’s got, anyway. She doesn’t look particularly satisfied or sympathetic. 

Or she doesn’t until she twists her head away from him, and winds up looking across the restaurant at Theo, same as Liam had, earlier. Her tight expression softens. So does her posture: her arms uncross, and she exhales out a rough huff of a breath, and after a few seconds of looking at Theo she looks back at Liam.

“Does it have to be?” She wonders.

She doesn’t give him a chance to respond. Instead she shoots one last, searching glance at Theo, and then she steps past Liam still blocking her way—turning her shoulders so that they don’t collide in the relatively cramped hallway—to the bathroom. The door clicks shut behind her.

Liam understands that he’s been dismissed, but he doesn’t move right away. But he _can’t,_ his feet feeling rooted to the floor as he stands, and stares at nothing. It’s possible he’s barely breathing; his chest certainly _feels_ several sizes too small for his lungs, anyway.

But then he hears, “Liam,” stated low and quiet but forceful, and he jerks to look at Theo across the floor of the restaurant. Theo hadn’t shouted Liam’s name but he might as well have, with the way it sets Liam’s pulse to galloping. 

Theo looks back. His expression had melted out of its easy, open grin when he’d finished his conversation with Lorilyn, apparently, and back into a more neutral mask that he’d prepared for Liam, but the longer Liam just stands and stares back at him, the more Theo’s brow furrows. His mouth starts to open—no doubt about to demand _what’s wrong_ in that same quiet tone that Liam’s supernatural hearing will catch regardless—and Liam just—can’t. 

He shakes himself, and starts all but jogging towards the front of the restaurant. He keeps his head ducked even when he reaches Theo, slowing to a stop by his side.

“Sorry,” he mutters, when he gets there.

“Everything okay?” Theo asks, and his concern isn’t feigned. 

His nostrils flare.

 _Get yourself together,_ Liam snarls at himself, grabbing the fraying ends of his scent and _forcefully_ bringing them back under control. He can tell the instant Theo realizes what he’s done because the concerned look on his face slams shut; goes neutral again. 

He turns away. “C’mon,” he orders shortly. “We need to get back on the road.” 

When he leaves the restaurant—shouldering his way through the doors—he doesn’t look back. 

Liam does, though. 

He stretches out one hand to keep the door from swinging shut on his face, and he turns and looks back at Elliot now behind the serving counter and bantering with his cooks as he helps prep food, at Lorilyn at the host desk helping one of her servers roll silverware; at Lisbeth now back to retrieving plates for her tables, her face lit up in a smile as she laughs at something one of her customers says.

Liam gives himself exactly three total seconds to burn the sight—Theo’s _family_ —into his memory, and then he forces himself to follow Theo through the door.

\--- 

It’s not exactly a _surprise_ when Theo abandons Liam when they reach their shared motel room that night, but Liam can’t stop himself from calling after him when he realizes what Theo’s doing. 

He can’t stop himself from flinching when Theo slams the door shut behind himself, leaving Liam standing alone in the middle of the room like an _idiot_.

 _Give him space,_ Scott had advised Liam all those years ago, so Liam stares at the back of the closed door for a long, _long_ few seconds, and then he forces himself to about-face, and grab his bag, and go shower. He’s not unclean in the physical sense but he still feels somehow grimy, like the whole sequence of events starting from when he’d first jammed his foot in his mouth about Valack’s novel to his unexpected run-in with Lisbeth has somehow stuck to him.

Not to mention, it’ll at least waste _time,_ if nothing else.

But not enough of it, and Theo’s still not back when he gets out. Liam gives serious thought to panicking for a moment, all those old fears bubbling up—that Theo left again; that Theo never came home; that Theo came home only to _then_ leave again—but. But he can hear Theo’s heartbeat, faint but _there,_ at the park across the street that they’d both seen on the drive in. He doesn’t think it’s an accident that even in his anger, Theo hadn’t gone far; that he’s still close enough that Liam can stand in the motel room where Theo had left him, and only have to strain a _little_ to hear the steady beat of his pulse. 

Liam stands in the bathroom doorway and listens to exactly that for a long moment, his towel in hand, and then he very carefully folds his towel into a precise square, and leaves it on the bathroom counter. After that’s done he goes to sit up against the headboard of the bed farther away from the door—the one closer immediately claimed by Theo, and all without a word—and he turns on the TV. He forces himself to click around until he finds some mindless action show, and then he forces himself to sit through the rest of the current episode, and the beginning of the second. Every few minutes he lets himself check on Theo’s pulse, and then each time he forces himself to refocus on the TV. 

But then that second episode ends, and Theo still isn’t back. It’s not dark outside yet but it’s _gray,_ and anyway Liam’s not actually worried about Theo being alone outside at night. 

He might be worried about Theo being _alone,_ though. He hesitates for a few seconds longer, and then he swings his legs over the side of the bed. 

Theo’s sitting on the cool concrete in the park’s gazebo area, his hands covering his face and his back to a brick pillar, when Liam walks up. He drops them when Liam reaches him. 

He says, “I can’t,” when he meets Liam’s eyes, and based on the look on his face, he really _can’t._

“I’m not here to fight,” Liam tells him, and he’s not. 

They don’t fight.

They come close, because they’re _them_ —because when Liam reminds Theo that he was a victim of the Dread Doctors, too, Liam can _see_ Theo marshalling his arguments, all his well-worn counters that Liam has heard and rejected a hundred times before—but then they don’t. 

But then Theo says, “It doesn’t matter,” and it’s clear he believes it. But then he says, “It’s in the past,” and it’s clear he believes _that._

What Liam’s realizing _he_ believes: “You’re never going to leave that place, are you? You’re never going to let yourself,” and Theo flinches like Liam had _struck_ him.

And then Theo looks away from him, and starts to dig the heel of his right palm into his tattoos, and now it’s _Liam_ who can’t: he’s snapped a hand forward to catch Theo’s wrist before he’s even consciously realized he’s moved. And after that, well. After that there’s just—no point in _not_ swinging around to sit next to Theo against the brick pillar he’d propped himself up against. There’s no point in _not_ shifting his fingers so that they’re wrapped around Theo’s tattoos instead, the stretch of them like a barrier to keep the heel of the palm of Theo’s other hand away; to prevent the anxious, guilty gesture that Theo’s carried around with him for _years_ now. 

There’s no point in _not_ sitting there with his side pressed up against Theo’s, Theo’s warmth bleeding into him. 

Not when Theo doesn’t stop him. Not when Theo doesn’t move away. 

But eventually it gets late. But eventually it gets late enough that Theo actually starts to _fall asleep_ against Liam’s shoulder, and there’s probably some point in not letting him do that. So as _loathe_ as Liam is to find out what happens after he breaks this quiet moment, he—breaks this quiet moment. 

“Hey,” he murmurs, and bumps Theo gently with his shoulder.

Theo blinks, and glances up at him. Liam can see the exact moment that he realizes what’d almost happened, because his expression spasms, and he looks away, and his arm jerks where it’s still held fast in Liam’s grip.

His right hand automatically starts to reach for his tattoos.

Liam—after a second—releases his arm. He lets Theo push himself to his feet, his eyes anywhere but on Liam’s face as he swallows; Liam can hear his throat click. Closing his eyes, very briefly, Liam starts to twist to push himself to his feet, too.

When he opens his eyes, though, it’s to see Theo’s outstretched hand in front of his face. He follows it up to its owner. Theo winces a little, but he—doesn’t take his hand away, and when Liam reaches up after another long second to take it, he hauls Liam to his feet.

They stand there breathing each other’s air for a moment, and then Theo blinks, and releases Liam’s hand, and walks away.

Liam spends a few seconds just standing watching him go, and then he follows.

The motel room door is propped open for him when he gets there but Theo isn’t in the main room, and the bathroom door is closed. Liam hears the shower start up. _Okay,_ he thinks, after a few moments spent hovering in the doorway, and then he twists, and shuts and locks the door behind himself, and picks his way back over to his bed. He gets changed, and he climbs under the covers, and he closes his eyes.

It’s past midnight the first time he wakes up, groggy and unsure what the hell woke him. But he figures it out _fast,_ his head reflexively twisting around on his neck to _see,_ because Theo’s pulse is _rabbit-fast_ in his ears. His scent is _sour_ in Liam’s nose.

His breaths are huffing out against his pillow and inner arm from where he’s curled in on himself, tight in a little ball under the covers and with his expression screwed up with what looks like pain. Liam rolls over so he’s facing Theo instead of away, and stares at him, his own expression pinching. 

_Do I wake him up?_ He wonders, but then he remembers the tender raw way Theo’d been holding himself ever since their visit to his stolen family’s restaurant—his whole posture like an open wound that Liam just kept _salting_ no matter how what he did—and he doesn’t. 

Instead he takes in a deep breath, and holds it for seven long seconds, and exhales it out for the same. When his lungs are empty, he does it again. Again.

After a half-minute or so, Theo’s shaky, stuttering breaths start to slow. The next time Liam breathes in Theo does, too. 

He doesn’t hold it for as long but when he exhales it back out, his shoulders start to slump. He uncurls some against the bed, his torso twisting back so that he’s half-facing the ceiling and his legs sliding down, down along the mattress to sprawl a little more. His pulse starts to level out. His scent starts to clear.

Liam keeps breathing in the same steady rhythm, and in doing so he eventually puts himself back to sleep, too.

It happens three or four other times that night. Liam realizes what’s happening faster each time, to the point that the last time it happens—just as the light eking in through the windows is starting to turn gray, based on the colors painted across the back of Liam’s closed eyelids—he doesn’t even bother to open his eyes, just starts breathing slow and steady. In for seven, out for seven. 

Theo settles fast.

Liam’s not sure what wakes him up for the final time. A car backfiring outside or the blare of a horn, maybe. Something physical. He rolls over to look at the clock between his and Theo’s two beds, and sees it’s nearing six o’clock. Theo’s alarm goes off at six-thirty; Liam had heard it even from down the hallway at Nina’s house, even if he’d groaned and cursed and refused to get up until Theo had literally come into his room and _dragged_ the covers off of him.

Liam’s eyes drop to Theo’s phone sitting just below the clock, its little white charging cord trailing from it. Working his jaw, Liam considers, and then he reaches forward and grabs Theo’s phone, freeing it from its charging cord with a sharp yank.

It’s password-locked but Liam’s a dick, and nosy, and he’s been sitting less than three feet from Theo in a car for the past two days; he’s figured it out. He swipes past the facial recognition screen and types in the password itself, and when Theo’s phone dutifully unlocks itself, he navigates over to the clock app. There, he hesitates: chances are Theo is going to be _pissed_ at him for it—they’re already _way_ behind the schedule Theo had put together for this trip—but.

But.

He turns Theo’s alarm off. He sets Theo’s phone back down on the nightstand with a careful _click_ , and then he gets up.

But at six-thirty, the whole effort ends up being for naught: Theo blinks himself awake anyway, his hands coming up to scrub at his face almost immediately after.

He looks over at Liam sitting in the room’s single armchair once he’s done, his fingers left pressed against his mouth. Liam thinks about looking away, and then—doesn’t.

“You were dreaming about your trial,” he tells Theo, then, lips quirking: “You talk in your sleep,” to Theo’s confused, squinted-eyed look.

Theo’s expression spasms, but to Liam’s surprise he doesn’t clam up. He _does_ look away, and back at the ceiling, but after a few long seconds he also corrects, “Not the trial. Quentin,” and looks back over at Liam. 

Liam _stares._ He hadn’t expected the response—the admission—and he doesn’t know what to do with it, so he defaults to the only thing he can think of. He echoes, “ _Quentin,_ ” with feeling, then: “I fucking hate that guy,” because he does.

Theo snorts, and murmurs, “For what it’s worth, I’m pretty sure the feeling’s mutual.” Liam can’t respond right away, thrown. Last night every word Theo had spoken had sounded like it’d had to be _scraped_ out of him, and now he just sounds dryly amused, if a little croaky with sleep.

He tips his head sideways so he can quirk a small smile at Liam. Liam stares back at him for a long, frozen moment, and then he blurts out, “Do you want me to drive?”

Theo doesn’t stop watching him, though Liam can see the wheels turning in his head. _No,_ he’s expecting. _I’ve got it,_ he braces himself to hear. 

“Yeah,” Theo says after a moment. “Yeah, you mind?”

Liam doesn’t.

Out in the car once they’ve packed up the room, and gotten ready to leave, and checked out at the office, Liam pulls up the trip plan that he’d made Theo send him that first day, and he loads up their next destination in his map app. He’s only absently paying attention to Theo as Theo gets himself settled into the passenger seat, but there’s no missing the slightly baffled look Theo ends up wearing as he does; apparently he’d never been a passenger in his own car before. With the directions to their next destination settled and Theo’s seatbelt locked Liam moves on to the important stuff: he navigates over to his music app and selects one of his favorite playlists, and then drops his phone into one of the console’s cup holders. 

He looks over at Theo after. His lips quirk up without his say-so. “Ready?” He asks.

“Ready,” Theo confirms, and then he _yawns,_ huge and jaw-cracking. He only manages to bring up a hand to cover it after it’s already halfway completed.

Liam snorts a laugh but doesn’t say anything, just starts Theo’s car and shifts it into reverse; gets them pulled out of the motel and back onto the city streets headed for the highway. For a moment he considers trying to make conversation. For a moment after _that_ he thinks about turning the music up. In the end he does neither, because he has a theory, and he wants to see if he’s right.

He turns out to be within fifteen minutes: Theo’s head tips sideways against the window, and his breathing evens out as he slides right back into sleep. Liam finds himself grinning at him, and because he can’t stop himself from doing it when he realizes _what_ he’s doing, he forces himself to turn his grin back onto the road.

He drives.

\---

He drives, and when he forgets himself and his sleeping passenger he sings along to the music, and when he remembers he stops, darting quick looks at Theo’s sleep-slack, easy face to make sure he hadn’t accidentally woken him up.

Every time he ends up seeing the two stacked circles of the McCall pack banded around Theo’s lower forearm, thick and starkly black and almost seeming to _shine_ dully in the morning sunlight pouring in through the windshield. With the way Theo’s arm is resting against his lap Liam can’t see the Argent fleur-de-lis marking the inside of his elbow, but it’s not like he _needs_ to; he knows it’s there. Liam stares at the McCall pack symbol inked into Theo’s skin, remembering the feel of the magic prickling at his fingers last night as he’d covered Theo’s tattoos with his own hand, and then he looks back at the road.

He turns the music up exactly one unit louder, and props his own bare left forearm up against the driver’s side door.

He drives them past rolling fields dotted with contemplative livestock with their heads down, munching their way through the yellowed summer grass. He drives them past billboards advertising all kinds of roadside attractions; rest stops and tourist traps and diners boasting about the size of their steak-n’-eggs platters, meant no doubt to entice the truckers whose semis Liam keeps weaving in between.

He drives them through little nothing towns: blips on the map exactly like Beacon Hills would be if you didn’t _know,_ if you’d never _lived it._ Liam spends his time stopped at various streetlights along various Main Streets, and wonders, and wonders.

He looks at the people walking by along sidewalks, coming in and out of stores, and can’t stop himself from thinking: _are you like me?_

He keeps driving.

But eventually he has to stop, because he’s starving, and he’s drank several cans of energy drinks to try and make up for his constantly-interrupted sleep last night, and the signs lining the highway are assuring him that the next major rest stop isn’t for another sixty miles. He pulls in and parks, and when he glances over at Theo as he’s releasing his seatbelt, he sees Theo already blinking himself groggily awake.

He nearly reaches out to try and settle the confused look on Theo’s face as Theo shifts from sleep to wakefulness, something pricking at him as he watches the way that Theo so-very-obviously pulls himself back together; collecting the limbs he’d let sprawl out, loose and easy; smoothing the sleep-open look on his face into something more controlled.

But Liam doesn’t reach out, of course.

Of course.

Instead he makes an excuse when Theo asks why they stopped, and waggles a can of energy drink. Theo’s lips quirk up and he accepts the explanation without issue, his hands already reaching for his door handle. Liam spends a few seconds watching the broad stretch of his back as he hops down from the car, and then he spends a few seconds staring sightlessly out at the parking lot, and then he gets out, too.

There are families and screaming children _everywhere,_ and he’s not the only one who noticies; he can see Theo wincing, his eyes squinting as his ears no doubt ring with the noise. Theo’s still sleep-slow and a little vulnerable-seeming, even after Liam comes back from the bathroom, so in the end Liam hooks a hand around his elbow—onlyrealizing that he’d hooked Theo’s _left_ arm when Theo’s tattoos prickle against his fingertips—and guides him over to one of the rest stop’s restaurants to get lunch. 

Theo follows where he leads, no complaints.

Or at least he does until they’re preparing to leave, Liam’s arms full of every snack he’d walked by that seemed vaguely interesting and Theo holding just a frankly _comically_ large cup of coffee as he stares thoughtfully down at a stack of hardcover books in the rest stop’s corner store. “Shohreh,” he starts to explain, and Liam scowls underneath the cheap plastic sunglasses he’d put on—the tag dangling annoyingly down by his mouth—and refuses to accept the rest of the explanation that follows.

“She kept you prisoner for six months,” Liam reminds Theo after Theo’s rebuked him, though he shouldn’t _have_ to; Theo was _there,_ clearly. He should know.

But Theo apparently doesn’t, and more to the point _won’t_ , and so Liam turns on his heel to stalk away—stops once with a startled sound as Theo reaches forward to snag the sunglasses off his face—and blows his way back out through the rest stop doors after he’s left Theo to check out. _She probably saved my life,_ Theo had said, and back in the Council’s barn for the first time after his trial he’d argued, _Scott and Argent saved my_ life _here._ Liam stands in the middle of the sidewalk in front of the rest stop, irritated tourists stepping around him on their way in or out, and then he forces himself to exhale out a _deep,_ heavy breath, and lets his shoulders slump. 

There’s a placard and a map propped up on two metal legs set off to the side of the sidewalk. Liam heads over to it mostly to get himself out of the way.

But once there he realizes it’s a bas-relief map of a nearby state park, faded plastic mountain peaks and bumpy forests that he can run his fingers over, his fingertips singing a little with the friction as he studies the unfamiliar stretch of terrain. He’s still hunched over it when Theo comes up behind him, the sense of him a little cautious after their brief spat in the store, and Liam finds himself thinking, _I bet he’s been,_ because Theo’s been _everywhere,_ practically. He twists his head around, and asks.

“I haven’t,” he tells Theo, when he turns out to be right, and Theo has been to the park. _I haven’t been much of anywhere,_ he’s realizing—eyes back on the map, and hundreds of miles away from home, and with the weight of his only _delayed_ responsibilities waiting there for him—and then he shoves himself upright, and heads towards Theo’s car without another word.

When Theo offers to take over driving he doesn’t fight it. When his eyes start to slip shut as he’s leaning his head against the window he lets them, his chest a snarled mess that he starts out trying to keep out of his scent, before he gives up and lets it do what it wants. _Something in this car should be able to, after all,_ he thinks bitterly, and then he’s asleep.

But he doesn’t wake up to Theo pulling into the motel they’d picked out for the night, like Liam’s expecting. Instead he wakes up because the side of his head cracks painfully against the glass of the window as the car bumps and jolts along, and he twists around to stare at Theo in confusion. 

There’s the hint of a small smile on Theo’s face, poised and hovering like he can’t help it, but also like he’s not sure about letting it out just yet. Liam squints at him for a second as Theo rolls the car carefully to a stop, and then he whips his head around to look at their surroundings. 

_No way,_ he thinks. He imagines his fingers running over the top of the trees swaying softly side to side outside of the windshield, just like they’d ran over their analogs on the map at the rest stop. He looks back over at Theo. He barely registers Theo’s snarky explanation for their presence because that small secret smile has broken over Theo’s face after all.

Because there’s _excitement_ burbling in his own chest, fast and flowing like the water from the stream he can hear nearby; the stream he’d traced on the map just a few hours earlier. 

He _whoops,_ and shoves his way out of the car. 

It’s nothing like the Preserve. It’s _massive,_ for one thing—trees and mountains and rolling hills spreading out in all directions—and for another: when Liam stops and listens, really _listens,_ there are whole stretches of moments where the only thing he can hear is the wind through the trees, the sounds of animals picking their way through the undergrowth; the soft _shir_ of water flowing somewhere nearby.

Theo’s heartbeat, Theo only ever a few steps behind him.

And then Theo’s right beside him as he and Theo stand at the summit of the trail Liam had picked out, and look out over the forest below. Liam runs his eyes over the trees, bountiful in all directions, and then he turns to look at Theo.

But Theo isn’t looking at him.

 _Oh,_ Liam thinks, as he searches Theo’s face. _Oh,_ he realizes, as Theo lets his eyes slip shut, and his head tilt back as he _breathes,_ slow and deep and even. 

“What?” Theo wonders, when he opens his eyes back up and realizes that Liam is staring at him. His voice is soft, low; a little reverential. It does something complicated to Liam’s insides.

“You like it here,” he eventually replies, because Theo is still watching him; waiting for an answer.

“What, you don’t?” Theo challenges, but still in that same soft tone.

 _I like_ you _here,_ Liam thinks, helplessly. Here, where Theo could close his eyes and tip his head back and be willing to just _breathe._ Here, hundreds of miles away from Beacon Hills and or any of their allied packs, or clans, hidden away deep in the woods, no one but them around for _miles._ Here, where he seemed closer than he’d ever been to the Theo that Liam remembers from _before_ —before the last several years, before his tattoos, before his _trial_ —and here, where he seemed almost just like _Theo_ , rather than Theo: Professional Pack Errand Runner. 

Rather than the Theo of the Council’s barn, or Shohreh’s warded guest room: convinced that the fact that he’s still alive—that he’d been _allowed_ to live—is the most he’ll ever be allowed to have. To _want._

“I do,” he says, answering Theo’s question without really answering it at all. Then, because he can’t stop himself; because the truth is pressing itself up against the backs of his teeth: “But not in the same way, I don’t think.”

Theo’s expression goes as soft as his voice, his mouth dropping just slightly open and his furrowed brow smoothing out as the muscles of his cheeks and jaw slacken. Any second now he’s going to realize and get it back under control and Liam just doesn’t want to see it— _can’t_ bring himself to see it—so he looks away. But in doing so he looks back out at the trees, and the stretch of forest, and part of himself starts casting around, thinking: _I don’t want to go back yet_. Begging: _don’t make us go back yet._

Somewhere in the trees below an animal moves through the brush, quiet but not quiet _enough_ to avoid Liam’s ears. His breath freezes in his chest. He looks back at Theo, mental wheels turning.

Theo tries to refuse Liam’s offer at first, all sound logic and dismissive tone. But stubbornness had flared in Liam’s chest, immovable and a little desperate, and he coaxes and cajoles—keeping his tone as light, and as easy, as he can, given how _badly_ he suddenly wants Theo to say yes—and eventually Theo stops, and studies him, and then asks, “You sure?,” quiet and a little vulnerable.

Liam stares at the press of Theo’s bottom lip between his teeth. He nods.

But it’s been _years_ since he’s seen Theo in his full-shift form, and he isn’t prepared for it when he follows Theo into the trees to retrieve his abandoned clothes. He’s not ready for the sleek easy way that Theo moves—confident and not all hesitant, not at all carefully _controlled_ like Theo moves when he’s human-shaped and all too aware of the space he’s taking up—Theo shaking himself and his massive back like he’s settling his fur properly onto his bones, his four feet planted firmly into the earth as he does. 

He doesn’t know what to do with the absence of Theo’s tattoos, Theo’s left foreleg unmarked or just all black; the McCall stacked circles and the Argent fleur-de-lis invisible.

Any second now Theo is going to look up and see the stunned-startled look on Liam’s face, and that’s just—unacceptable. “Alright, Lassie,” Liam forces himself to croak out after he’s bent down, and gathered up Theo’s clothes—conveniently hiding his face from view for the time it takes him to get his expression under control—and then straightened back up. He _prays_ he sounds more normal to Theo than he does to himself. “Let’s do this.”

But it turns out he’s _equally_ unprepared for the way that Theo’s only response is to dart forward, and nip at his fingers. He _squawks,_ more startled than hurt, and has made a lunging grab for Theo before he’s even thought about it. Theo just dances away, but not _far_ —a specific gleam in his eyes and a quixotic held-breath anticipation to the way he stands on his bent legs—and Liam stares at him, and considers, and then he _grins._

He gives chase. 

Every now and then they run into other hikers who look _supremely_ baffled to see Liam alone, but with what is clearly a second set of clothes tossed over his shoulders; Theo always disappearing into the trees when he hears them coming. It feels like a secret in the _best_ kind of way, and Liam grins toothily at all of them, just _aggressively_ normal in the face of their confusion, and when Theo winds his ways back out of the trees once they’ve passed, Liam always, _always_ reaches for him, and winds his fingers into the fur of Theo’s ruff. 

Theo lets him. Theo presses close up to his legs every time, before he moves back away to trot a few steps ahead, leading the way forward.

Liam’s so caught up in it that it doesn’t occur to him what’s likely to happen when they make it back to the parking lot, and Theo’s car, not until they’re already most of theway _there_. It’s only once he’s made it halfway across the asphalt that he realizes that Theo isn’t leading anymore. That Theo isn’t even _following_ anymore; instead he’s stopped at the edge of the trees, and yipping after Liam as Liam gets farther and farther away.

Liam stops and pivots back on a heel to look at him, reality crashing _right_ back into him as he does, and then he thinks, very clearly: _no._

No, he’s not ready to go back yet. He’s not ready for _Theo_ to go back yet, not to the motel that’s waiting for them and not to the rest of the world, poised at the edge of the forest right along with Theo, waiting to drag them both back to the lives they’d managed to leave behind when they’d entered it. When they’d stood at the summit and Theo had tipped his head back and just _breathed;_ when Theo had shaken himself loose of his human skin, and seemed to have left his tattoos—both physical, and _mental_ —behind when he had.

 _Not yet,_ Liam thinks, and so he says, almost on autopilot; his mind working as fast as his mouth: “C’mon, you big baby. There’s no one else _here._ ”

No one else to tell Theo _no_. To tell _Liam_ no. _C’mon,_ Liam thinks desperately as he continues to cajole, hope lodging itself up high in his chest even as some small bitter part of himself waits for Theo to tell _himself_ no, and then—Theo glances around, and slinks carefully out of the trees.

“Yeah?” Liam can’t stop himself from blurting out, all the tension in his shoulders rushing over to and then _out_ of his throat. “Really? _Yes!_ ” He crows.

 _Yes,_ he thinks, something in his chest feeling like it cracks open and makes room for the surprise, and the disbelief, and the _gratitude_ that flows back down his throat as he swallows; as Theo reaches him, and touches the tip of his muzzle just briefly to one of Liam’s dangling hands.

Liam drives them to the campsite that he just _barely_ remembers glancing at when he’d been looking at the rest stop map; he has to sneak a look at his phone at an intersection to make sure he actually knows where he’s going, curling over the screen to hide the bright flare of it from Theo. But Theo’s not looking at him. He’s in the backseat still in his full-shift form, stretched out on his side with his muzzle on his front paws and his eyes soft and hooded and sleepy. Liam has to resist reaching back and running a hand through the soft-looking fur covering his exposed belly. 

He gets them fed. He gets them settled. He opens up a bottle of water and carefully tips it over the ground so Theo can drink when Theo nudges it against his side in a silent request. 

And then he spends a few seconds sitting at the edge of the trunk, his head and shoulders twisted around so that he can watch as Theo picks his way farther into the car, and then curls up next to the mattress pad and sleeping bag that Liam had laid-out. _Right_ next to it, even with the few inches of space he could have claimed further to the side.

Liam turns back forward towards the empty parking lot, and crumples the now-empty water bottle in his hands. He twists it this way and that, listening to the thin plastic crackle and snap, and then he takes a deep breath, and tosses it aside into the trunk. He reaches up and gets the hatch shut and latched, his legs pulled up and out of the way to let it, and then he turns around to crawl forward in the near-total dark—his eyes flared to see—until he can reach the top of the sleeping bag. He wiggles his way into it, apologizing in hushed tones when he accidentally knocks against Theo’s back close by with his knees and unintentionally flailing elbows, and finally settles on his side, facing the side of the car.

But that doesn’t last long: he turns almost immediately over.

Theo’s still facing away from him but he’s still _close._ Close enough that it’s the work of a moment for Liam to free a hand from his sleeping bag, and reach forward, and stroke it down his big, furred side; the urge too reflexive, and overwhelming, to stop this time. 

Theo _jumps._ Liam _jolts._

“Sorry!” He immediately blurts out, high-pitched and panicked. “Sorry, that was dumb, I don’t know what I was—”

Except Theo suddenly twists around, and catches the hand that Liam had been in the process of yanking back, away from him, and he tugs it back forward, the tips of fangs just the _barest_ pressure around Liam’s wrist. He slowly lowers it back down, until Liam’s hand is once more resting on his side. 

_Oh,_ he thinks. “Yeah?” He wonders.

Theo doesn’t answer—can’t, obviously—just turns back around so that he’s not facing Liam anymore. But he shifts further back against Liam once he has. He presses up into the touch, Liam feeling it under his palm when Theo’s big, lupine lungs shudder in and then out a deep breath.

Liam stays right where he is for a single moment, two, and then he carefully lifts his hand up, and strokes it down Theo’s side. Theo shivers. Liam shifts farther forward, closer to his back; it puts his nose nearly in Theo’s ruff.

He closes his eyes. He doesn’t stop the slow, steady movement of his hand; not until he falls asleep. 

\---

 _Technically,_ Deaton had explained that day in the animal clinic, Liam frantically scribbling notes, _Yael Leitner is the third most senior hunter representative on the council. In actuality, her influence is second really only to Araya’s._

Stood in the entryway to the Leitners’ home—their _compound,_ some bitter prickly part of Liam sneers—Liam looks back at Yael as she looks steadily at him, and then he flicks his eyes over to Theo’s. But whatever he thought he _might_ see—whatever he’d been _hoping_ to see—all that’s there is Theo’s carefully diplomatic expression. Liam stares at him for a beat longer, two, and then he—forces himself to follow Hamish Leitner’s guiding arm away, deeper into the house.

Away from Theo.

But he keeps his ears anchored to Theo even as he goes. Yael leads Theo into the house’s dedicated library, the room so filled with thick-backed books that it actually muffles his pulse, a little, his carefully-chosen words, but Liam’s determined. He braces his hands wide on the railing of the porch Hamish leads him out onto, a handful of other hunters joining them as they go, and he _listens._

To Theo, that is, not to Hamish, who keeps talking to him even though Liam can tell he _knows_ —this small subtle smile on his face—where Liam’s focus is. Hamish asks about Scott, and Derek—they’d met when they were kids, apparently, though Hamish hasn’t seen him for years—and about the pack. There’s no way he can hear his grandmother or Theo but his timing is _conveniently_ good; every now and then one of his questions or comments overlaps with Theo or Yael speaking, and Liam misses some of what’s said, even as he’s grinding out whatever monosyllabic-or-near-to response he can dredge up. 

And then Yael says to Theo, _You’re worried about Beta Dunbar. About Liam,_ and Liam’s breath freezes in his chest. His spine stiffens.

But that’s _nothing_ to how he feels when Theo replies, deferential and quiet: _I apologize for his attitude, he—_

“She admires him, you know,” Hamish suddenly offers, and Liam’s concentration is so shot he loses track of the thread of Yael’s and Theo’s conversation entirely. He whips around to glare at Hamish in response, but Hamish’s serene expression—that same small subtle smile—doesn’t change. He just clarifies, as if Liam needs it: “Your friend.”

Liam drivesthe tip of his tongue _hard_ against the backs of his teeth. He counters, “She voted to sentence him to death,” because Yael Leitner’s had been one of the six hands to go up when Araya had called for the vote on Quentin’s Storo’s request for the Right of Retribution.

 _Now_ something flickers across Hamish’s expression, though Liam can’t tell what the hell it is _. Theo probably could,_ he finds himself thinking, and then he shoves it aside. He watches Hamish flatly for a few seconds longer, and then he starts to turn back to the rolling sprawl of the Leitners’ land stretched out in front of the porch as he sends his senses back out, searching for Theo and the rest of his conversation with Yael: _I apologize for his attitude, he—_

But Hamish speaks up again. He says, “Have you ever wondered _why_ the Dread Doctors were able to terrorize your town with such impunity?”

Liam twists his head sideways to stare at him. He doesn’t say, _I just figured it was because you all were failing to do your jobs_ , though it’s on the tip of his tongue to. 

Though he _did,_ all those years ago at Theo’s trial.

Hamish seems to hear it anyway. His face settles back into that serene expression. He explains, “The region was already destabilized with the murders of Talia Hale, and the members of her pack.” Liam twitches, remembering Kate’s smirking face the few times he’d had the displeasure of seeing it. 

He has to stifle a flinch, recalling Derek’s constant, quiet grief.

“Ailene Storo’s death—” Hamish continues, ignoring both Liam’s _first_ set of reactions, and then his second when Hamish mentions Ailene and he hears again the soft regretful way that Theo had said, _I can’t go with you to Chemult,_ back before everything had gone to—metaphorical, admittedly—hell, “—and Quentin’s subsequent rise to alphahood, created a level of instability in the region. One that the Dread Doctors exploited.”

Liam’s mouth drops open. “You’re _blaming_ him?”

“I blame the Dread Doctors,” Hamish disagrees calmly. “But your friend helped.”

“He didn’t have a _choice_ ,” Liam snaps back. It’s entirely possible his fangs are starting to drop. He _definitely_ takes a step towards Hamish, one hand—the fingertips attached to it prickling with the pressure of his claws—still on the railing.

Behind Hamish, several of the other Leitner hunters shift their weight in their previously easy, lounging stances. 

But Hamish just answers, “I’m aware,” and they all relax back down, though their eyes stay fixed on Liam’s face. Liam swallows, and looks back up at Hamish—his mouth a little metallic-tasting, his pulse a little fast where he can feel it beating against the thin skin of his wrists—as Hamish looks back, and reminds him, like Liam actually needs _reminding:_ “I was at his trial, just like you. I heard the evidence. But Ailene Storo is still dead. As are—” Hamish continues, and Liam silently fills in _Josh, and Tracy, and Tara,_ before he can stop himself, “—many others.”

Liam stares at him, stricken. It occurs to him that Theo could theoretically be overhearing this conversation, and he hopes to _god_ that Theo isn’t. He insists, “He’s not that person anymore,” through lips that feel like they’ve gone _numb._

“Clearly not,” Hamish agrees, immediately and without hesitation. “Like I said—” he repeats, his lips flickering into a more pronounced, more _genuine_ smile, “—my grandmother admires him.”

He doesn’t say _as do I,_ but it hangs there between them regardless. Liam remembers, abruptly, that Theo’s been doing this kind of shuttle diplomacy for _years._ That he stopped at that painting in the Leitners’ entryway to admire it because he’d _seen it_ before. Because he _likes_ it, and the Leitners’ like that he likes it, and they like _him._ Liam’s shoulders start to round, all his fury and righteous indignation hollowing out, and he shrinks back against the railing some, his eyes dropping to the ground as _shame_ slithers in to start filling up his chest instead.

Inside the house, there’s a sudden _creak_ of a door opening: Theo and Yael exiting the library. Liam’s head jerks up without his say-so in response and Hamish must realize what it means, because he straightens from where he’d been leaning against the railing a few feet away from Liam. He starts to head back towards the porch door, clearly about to escort Liam back inside.

But when he’s parallel to Liam, he suddenly slows, and stops. Liam startles and looks reflexively over at him as Hamish looks down.

“Something to keep in mind, Beta Dunbar,” he murmurs, and as raw as Liam’s still feeling he can recognize that the honorific is a gesture of _respect,_ and not mockery, “My grandmother _also_ voted to _save_ your friend’s life, when your alpha offered her—and the other Councilmembers—a way to do so.”

He doesn’t wait for Liam’s reply when he’s done speaking, just continues walking. Liam stands and stares sightlessly out at the stretch of the Leitners’ compound—their _land,_ their _home_ —visible from the porch, and then he turns and follows Hamish back inside.

\---

Liam braces for it on the ride back to their motel, but Theo doesn’t bring it up: _I apologize for his attitude, he—._ Instead Theo just asks, “Hey, can you hand me,” and gestures towards the little white charging cable dangling from the dash so that he can plug in his phone when Liam jerks and looks over at him. 

They’re still surrounded by Leitner hunters, Liam realizes; Hamish and a few of his people escorting Theo and Liam back to the highway. He resigns himself to waiting until they’ve broken away, though every additional second _winches_ the muscles between his shoulder blades tighter, and tighter.

But even once the Leitners have pulled away, and he and Theo are flying back down the highway towards their motel, Theo _still_ doesn’t say anything. He props his left elbow up on the driver’s side door, and rubs his fingers over his mouth—the black of his tattoos gleaming dully in the late afternoon sunlight—and he doesn’t say a word. His silence is heavy, _preoccupied,_ and he won’t look at Liam. 

_He’s disappointed,_ Liam realizes with a sickening jolt. It’d been the first time _ever_ that Theo had seen Liam interact with one of their allied hunter clans without the buffer—the _crutch_ —of Scott and the rest of the pack being there, and Liam had _royally_ fucked it up. _I apologize for his attitude, he—_ Theo had told Yael Leitner, as stiff and formal as Scott’s voice had been cracked and desperate when he’d pleaded, _Hunter Calaveras, Councilmembers, I’m so sorry,_ at Theo’s trial, Liam making an absolute _fool_ of himself, and the pack by extension, as he’d yelled and raged and had to be physically _dragged_ out of the room like some kind of child. 

He’d been young, then. He’d been naive, and apparently he still _is_. Liam rolls down his window and then turns his face towards it specifically so that Theo won’t be able to use the reflection to see the way that his expression screws up, entirely beyond his control.

They get back to the motel, and step through the door into their room, and Liam’s sure that _this_ is it: his reprieve is over. He turns to push the door carefully shut behind himself, making _deliberately_ certain that it latches all the way. It’s a flimsy barrier against the outside world, and the other patrons of the motel are _definitely_ going to be able to hear it when Theo really starts in on him, but there’s not a whole lot else Liam can do. He spends a few seconds just staring blankly at the wood of the door, and then he forces himself to turn around, and face Theo.

But Theo’s not even looking at him. He still has his back turned, and he’s fishing his wallet, and keys, out of his pockets. He’s shedding his jacket and tossing it onto the back of the room’s armchair, and then pivoting to sit down in it so that he can start unlacing his boots. “I was thinking of showering before we go,” he says, apropos of absolutely fucking _nothing._ “You want one?”

Liam _stares._ “What?”

Theo’s head jerks up, and he looks wide-eyed back. His fingers pause over his half-untied laces. “Dinner,” he answers slowly. “Did you still want to…?” He grimaces, and then looks away, as he offers, “I mean, we could order something, I guess, if you didn’t want to—”

“No,” Liam blurts out before he can stop himself. Suddenly that’s _all_ he wants, and he can see Theo’s logic: stuck in the middle of a restaurant surrounded by random people, they’d both have to keep the coming confrontation to a low boil. It’s clever, even if Liam winces to realize that Theo thinks it’s necessary; that he needed to _handle_ —to _baby_ —Liam like this. He bites his lip, and tells Theo, “No, let’s go.”

Theo looks back. His fingers are still hovering awkwardly over his laces, and Liam doesn’t know why that strikes him as strangely as it does. But Theo just says, “Okay,” and he sounds a little _relieved._ Something sharp twists itself up in Liam’s guts.

They go.

Liam waits, and waits, when they get there, but Theo doesn’t bring it up. Not when they first sit down, and not when their entrees come, and not as they’re slowly working their way through them. It occurs to Liam after a while that Theo might be waiting for _Liam_ to bring it up, and he _freezes,_ a forkful of food halfway to his mouth. It’d be a quintessentially _diplomatic_ thing to do, after all, and if this trip had proved nothing else it’d certainly proved that Theo is a consummate diplomat. Liam has to drop his fork back down to his plate and look away out through the restaurant’s windows as his stomach roils a little.

But finally Theo _does_ speak; Liam’s head whips back around to look at him. “You any good?” He asks, and Liam’s absolutely _lost_ until he follows the angle of Theo’s tipped chin towards the pool table tucked away in a corner of the restaurant. 

“Delta Rho has a table,” Liam answers after a long, blank moment, because it’s the only thing he can come up with that isn’t _what the hell._

Theo’s lips just flicker. His head cocks in a silent question. “We’ve got some time to kill,” he points out, “unless you’re dying to go back to the motel.”

And Liam doesn’t really know what the hell else to do, so he nods.

It turns into an unintentional hustle. For all that he’s clearly some kind of savant at calculating the angles it turns out Theo is pretty unapologetically _shit_ at pool, and Liam—many nights of drunken games at Delta Rho behind him—isn’t. Still, it doesn’t seem to bother Theo. He seems to be enjoying the hell out of himself, actually, the slope of his shoulders easy, and he takes his first loss with grace. 

He keeps shooting these quick, searching glances at Liam, though, and finally Liam can’t take it anymore. Partway through their second game, as Theo is lining up his next shot, he blows out a huge, frustrated breath, and then _scoffs_ when Theo turns around to glare at him, his shot going _wide_. “Oh, please,” he dismisses. “Like you would have made that shot anyway.”

It comes out sharper than he’d intended but he feels alarmingly thin, _worn down,_ from the held-breath anticipation of waiting, and _waiting,_ for Theo to bring up what happened with the Leitners. _I apologize for his attitude, he—_

But Theo doesn’t seem to notice, or chooses not to react to, Liam’s tone. He just gestures for Liam to take his turn. _Fuck this,_ Liam thinks, a little _pissed_ now, and when Theo demands, “What?”—like he’s _confused,_ like he has no _idea—_ Liam just _glares_ at him.

“Look,” he snaps. “Can you just—stop dragging it out, or whatever? The suspense is killing me, here.”

But instead of giving in to Liam’s _completely reasonable request,_ Theo just stares at him. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Liam can’t believe it. _Hours,_ he’s been waiting, and very patiently. He looks away, trying to swallow down the urge to start _yelling_ — _good call on making us do this in public,_ Liam thinks again, gallows humor constricting like a _vice_ around his ribs—and he only turns back when he’s sure he’ll be able to keep his voice level. 

“My _attitude_ at the compound today?” He says, and can’t quite keep the sneer out of his voice even if he does manage to keep the volume down. “I heard you talking to _Hunter Leitner._ So just, whatever. Start yelling. Tell me I need to start acting like—”

Liam doesn’t actually know how he’d planned on finishing his own sentence—his mouth is moving _entirely_ on autopilot, fueled by all the tension he’d stored up over the course of the day and that’s all rushing forward like a _dam_ breaking now that he’s let it out—but he sure as hell isn’t expecting it when Theo suddenly finishes, “—a true alpha’s beta?”

Liam _freezes._ He can conclusively state from personal experience that it would have been less painful if Theo had jammed his clawed hand into the middle of his _guts._ He _stares_ at Theo. Theo stares back, wide-eyed and equally frozen, like he hadn’t meant to say it. 

But he’d clearly been _thinking_ it.

“Yeah,” Liam bites out, finally. “ _That._ ”

He can’t look at Theo anymore or he really is going to start exactly the kind of scene that Theo apparently brought him here to avoid. He _desperately_ needs a distraction so after a moment’s indecision he heads towards the cue ball still sitting forlornly on the pool table from where it’d stopped spinning after Theo’s last shot. That doing so will carry him right past Theo doesn’t occur to him until after he’s brushing past the breadth of Theo’s shoulders, even that brief second of contact distractedly warm.

“Liam,” Theo tries, as he does, but Liam ignores him. He puts all his focus on running his eyes over the table, calculating his next shot. 

He’s done this drunk before, dozens of times. He can do it furious and humiliated and irrationally wounded; it’s not like Theo had been _wrong,_ after all. He _does_ need to start acting like a true alpha’s beta. 

If he could only finally figure out what the hell that actually _means._

Theo is still looking at him, and he—doesn’t look like Liam expected him to. He doesn’t look, _whatever,_ disappointed or stern or even pissed-off. 

He is, in fact, staring at the crest on Liam’s shirt. 

Liam looks down, but it’s just a UCLA shirt, faded and kind of ragged, actually. He’d thrown it on because it’s the most comfortable thing he’d _brought_ on this trip, and he’d desperately wanted—maybe _needed_ —the uncomplicated refuge of it, as absurd—as _childish_ —a gesture as the whole thing was. He looks back up at Theo.

He isn’t prepared for it at _all_ when Theo asks him, “What do you want to do when you graduate?,” sounding genuinely _curious,_ of all things.

Liam is possibly more lost than he’s been at any previous point in this conversation. In this whole _trip,_ really. “What do you mean?” He asks in turn. “I have to go back to Beacon Hills, be Scott’s second.”

He has to go back to Beacon Hills, where he already _should be,_ where he’s _supposed to be_ —Deaton and his lessons abandoned, even after the way Scott had smiled at him and said, _thanks for this_ —and be…a true alpha’s beta, just like Theo had said.

But Theo just frowns. He _presses._ “But is that what you _want_ to do?”

Liam nearly _laughs._ In the end he still _scoffs,_ because he can’t quite swallow it back. His claws are prickling at his fingertips and if he doesn’t do something about the pressure they’re going to pop out, right here in the middle of this quintessential slice of suburban America, and so he tosses his pool cue aside. It clatters onto the table and smacks into the balls, sending them scattering every which way.

He wonders, bitter and viciously: “Since when has what I’ve _wanted_ ever mattered?,” the words breaking loose of the desperate, clawing way he tries to keep them trapped in his ribs, exactly where they’ve _been_ for—almost as long as he can remember. 

“What?” Theo breathes. Then, more strongly: “What are you _talking_ about? Scott’s not going to keep you prisoner if—”

Liam knows he’s going to regret the next words out of his mouth. He _already_ regrets them, even before they’ve made it past his teeth, but he can’t stop them. 

Isn’t sure he _wants_ to stop them: “Why not?” He sneers. “He seems to have a _talent_ for it, after all.”

His eyes flick down to the McCall stack circles tattooed irreversibly into Theo’s forearm. 

_Shame_ starts immediately trying to flow in around thebulwark of Liam’s anger after he’s said it. In his head he can _see_ the way that Scott had knelt before him on the eve of Theo’s trial and _promised_ _him_ that he had a plan to save Theo, his fingers digging deep into Liam’s shoulder like a benediction _._ He can _hear_ the way that Scott had all but apologized to him later for Theo’s sudden retreat into the shell of himself, Scott trying to shoulder _that_ blame, too, like the fact that he’d saved Theo’s life hadn’t been enough; like he hadn’t done it right, or good enough. If Liam doesn’t get away from Theo soon, Theo’s going to see everything he’s thinking all over his face, and Liam just—can’t. He goes to storm back past him, desperation driving him on.

But Theo just grabs hold of him, tight enough that Liam _hisses_ at the pressure. He snaps, “ _Hey._ That’s not fair.”

Theo’s rebuke lands like a _spike_ right through the fury gone calcified and hard in Liam’s chest, and _twists,_ cracking the whole thing open. The shame that’d been dammed up against it flows immediately _in,_ thick and heavy and threatening to press all of the air out of his lungs, and so Liam has to breathe out to relieve the ache, rough and unsteady and _shuddering._

“I know,” he says quietly, because he _does._ He’d known before Theo had said it. “I know, I’m sorry,” and he _is._

About a lot of things.

Theo releases his arm as Liam brings his hands up to scrub roughly at his face. He drops them, after a beat, his skin raw-feeling and prickling, and looks at Theo. “Why are you suddenly asking me about all this, anyway?”

Because Theo’s _never_ asked. He’s very _purposefully_ never asked, the one-two-three-four of his carefully choreographed response to Liam and Liam’s presence—look at Liam, look away from Liam, touch his tattoos, his scent going sour—leaving no room for it. Liam searches his face, a little desperately curious in his own way, now.

Theo just looks back, silent and with his expression soft and with his mouth dropped uncertainly open, and then he closes it, and shrugs. He looks away. 

But before Liam can feel _disappointment_ drop bitter into his gut, Theo murmurs, “I guess I just wanted to know.” And then his head snaps up, his expression almost a little panicked as he hastily adds, “If you wanted to tell me, that is.”

 _I do,_ Liam thinks, fierce and immediately. _God,_ he really does. But.

_But._

_I apologize for his attitude, he—_ Theo had had to say today, because Liam had, after being _invited_ into the home of one of their allied hunter clans—one of the most powerful hunter clans in the _country_ —acted _exactly_ like Argent had warned him against, all those years ago. Because Liam had been too young, and naive, to follow Theo’s lead, and act like Theo had. 

Theo, who could do be kind and friendly and a perfect diplomat, in spite of the fact that he’d had to rely on the kindness of strangers— _she also voted to save his life, when your alpha gave her, and all the other Councilmembers, a way to do so—_ in addition to how he’d had to rely on Scott, and Chris, to be able to have his second chance.

And Liam—who didn’t have any of those excuses—hadn’t managed to pull it off. He hadn’t managed to act anything _like_ a true alpha’s beta.

Liam looks away, unable to stomach the sour disappointment he feels towards _himself._ He swallows down every word that’d started jamming itself up against the cage of his teeth following Theo’s offer—because that’s what it’d _been_ —and he forces himself to straighten up. To get himself back under control. 

“Let’s just clean his up—” he finally says, and when he looks back up at Theo, the look on _his_ face is so disappointed—but not in Liam, Liam doesn’t think, not anymore—that Liam can’t help it, he breaks one of his own golden rules; he reaches up and rests a careful hand on Theo’s shoulder, his chest, “—and head back to the motel.” He manages to dredge up a shaky smile as he adds, “Clearly I’m not fit for polite company right now.”

He lets his hand slide off Theo’s shoulder. He doesn’t wait to see if Theo looks away from him, or touches his tattoos. He doesn’t flare his nostrils to try and see if the simple touch had caused Theo’s scent to sour.

It’s the one thing he lets himself have.

\---

“Hey,” Theo says softly, when they get back to the motel.

Liam nearly stumbles over his feet in his haste to turn around and look at him still standing framed in their room’s open doorway. Theo just hooks a thumb over his shoulder, and while he meets Liam’s eyes his expression is already half a wince.

He says, “I need to go update Scott and Argent on our progress. It’ll,” he hesitates, his gaze flicking there-and-away from Liam’s, “It’ll probably be a while.”

It’s the hesitation more so than the words that make it immediately clear to Liam why Theo’s telling him. He would have anyway, an offhand _FYI,_ but tonight—but after the conversation they had at the restaurant—he’s telling Liam as a signal, a heads-up; an opportunity for Liam to take advantage, and be in bed—either actually asleep or pretending to be—by the time Theo gets back. Liam hates, _hates,_ that Theo does it, at the same time that he’s absolutely, desperately grateful. 

He gives Theo a jerky nod, because his throat’s too tight to speak, and he isn’t sure he’d trust what comes out of his mouth regardless.

Theo does in fact take a while to update Scott and Argent, and Liam does in fact take him up on his unspoken offer to be in bed by the time he gets back. Theo steps through the door silently, and he gets ready for bed himself _silently,_ and never once does he acknowledge—though there’s no way he doesn’t know—that Liam is awake, curled up on his side facing the far wall of the motel room, his shoulders hunched up around his ears. Instead he just slips into his own bed when he’s done, and—as far as Liam can tell—actually manages to fall asleep.

Liam uncurls slightly when he realizes, his head twisting around on his neck to look at Theo over his shoulder. 

He flattens out, afterwards, and stares up at the ceiling.

He hadn’t meant to listen to Theo’s call, but like all his best intentions lately, it’d been for naught. He’d spent the whole time that Theo had been on the phone calmly updating Scott and Argent braced and waiting for Theo to say, _look, Scott, something happened today._

But of course Theo _hadn’t,_ and in hindsight Liam can’t believe that he ever thought Theo _would._ Instead when Argent had asked how their visit to the Leitners had gone, Theo had just said, _good._ He’d said, _Yael wanted me to give you her thanks._ He’d laughed and joked at something Scott had said, and he’d moved the conversation on shortly afterwards. 

_Protecting you,_ Liam had realized. He’d covered his face with his hands.

Just like he does _now,_ his breathing going muffled and uneven beneath his palms. In the other bed, Theo suddenly shifts, restless. Liam drops his hands and looks over.

Theo sucks in a sharp, shaky breath. His eyes move rapidly beneath their closed lids as he dreams. _As he has a nightmare,_ Liam corrects himself, because that’s clearly what it _is._ Liam winces, and—Theo bites off a low, harsh sound, nearly subvocal and very clearly edging towards lupine; cornered-animal-scared. Liam’s pulse rockets up when he hears it, a sympathetic fight-or-flight response, and the next sound out of Theo’s mouth isn’t low or bitten off at _all._

 _Oh,_ Liam realizes, horrified, and then he _immediately_ starts wrestling back control of his galloping heartbeat, his soured scent. 

Theo starts to relax slowly back down once he does, though he doesn’t stop dreaming. His eyes continue to move rapidly beneath his still-closed lids. 

Liam watches him for a long, _long_ second, and then he carefully throws back his covers, and gets silently out of bed.

His first instinct is to leave the room, to get _away;_ far enough that his own inner turmoil would stop setting off Theo’s. But he knows two things with absolute certainty: that if he tried to leave the room, Theo would probably wake _up,_ and even if he didn’t, he’d sure as hell panic later on if he _did,_ and then realized that Liam was gone. So Liam stands at the foot of his bed, and debates, and then he turns and pads his way over to the room’s attached bathroom, and slips inside. He pushes the door carefully shut behind himself.

He puts his back to it, once it’s closed, and slides slowly down it until he’s sitting. He covers his face with his hands again. 

_You’re the true alpha’s beta. You’re the true alpha’s beta. You’re the true alpha’s beta,_ Nejla had said, the first time she’d met him. When she’d said it, it’d been a sly-smiled introduction, a sort of coded shorthand for the secrets they were both keeping; Nejla flaring her werewolf eyes for the briefest of seconds under the fluorescents of the UCLA auditorium. But caged in alone in the dark of the motel room’s bathroom—the lights left off, and Liam’s eyes left unflared—Liam’s mind twists it into an accusation: _you’re the true alpha’s beta._

But was he, really, in anything other than _name?_

His hands are still over his face. His fingertips curl in against his cheeks and brow like _claws,_ and he can feel the shift pushing _out_ against his ribs, his containing skin, explosive-feeling like it hadn’t been in _years._ Liam nearly kicks a foot out against the wood of the cabinets, needing to give the pressure of it an _outlet,_ a _release valve,_ but at the last moment he stops himself, because if he did it, he’d put his foot _right_ through the wood. 

He’d wake Theo up, and see the look on his face when he realized what Liam had done. And then Liam would have to stand around just as _uselessly_ as he has been this whole trip while Theo talked to the motel manager, and paid for the damage.

While Theo cleaned up his mess. _Again._

 _Okay,_ he tells himself, nearly _shaking_ with the effort of holding it all back. _Okay, just breathe,_ he tells himself.

He drops his hands away from his face. He plants his forearms on his bent knees, his palms facing up. He starts to flick his claws out, one at a time; in a prickly wave; in half-remembered patterns.

 _What the hell is he doing?_ Liam had asked, years ago in the Stilinski kitchen during some holiday party or other and peering out into the living room where Derek was sitting with Scott and Malia in a tight little cluster, their heads bent low over his hands held up between them as he’d done exactly what Liam is doing now. Scott and Malia had been watching avidly.

 _It’s a party trick,_ Theo had answered, and then had almost immediately smirked when Derek had called back, a complaint: _it’s not a party trick! It’s a_ training _exercise._ Theo had looked directly at Liam, and rolled his eyes, and mouthed: _it’s a party trick._

But he’d also shown Liam how to do it, the two of them leaning forward over opposite sides of the Stilinski kitchen island, their hands hovering between them and their heads close. _Like this,_ Theo had said, and flicked one claw out at a time, each one retracted before moving on to the next. _This one’s harder,_ he’d acknowledged, when he’d moved onto extending them in a seamless, flowing wave. 

_This one’s the trick,_ he’d told Liam, low and conspiratorial and laughing full and out loud when Derek had overhead him anyway, and made a scalded-cat complaint. He’d shown Liam how to do it: extend the claws of the index and ring fingers, then the middle and pinky, and so on in different, ever-changing constellation patterns. _Not everyone can do it,_ he’d warned Liam, but Theo had been able to do it _effortlessly,_ and all while maintaining separate conversations as people walked by and asked him things, or he tongue-in-cheek commented uninvited. 

Liam hadn’t been able to do the last part then. 

He struggles to do it now.

 _C’mon,_ he berates himself, when he fucks it up again. He shakes out the offending hand, and then drops it back on his knee. _One,_ he thinks, extending the claws on his index and ring fingers of his right hand. _Two,_ he thinks, after he’s retracted them, and extended the claws on his middle and pinky fingers. _Three,_ he thinks, extending the claws on his thumb, his middle, and pinky fingers.

He does it again. He does it again. _One, two, three,_ he counts as he does, and then he switches hands, and his accompanying mental chant: _the sun,_ as he does the first set; _the moon,_ as he does the second; _the truth,_ as he does the third.

 _The sun, the moon, the truth._ He breathes. _The sun, the moon, the truth._

It helps. It helps right up until the point some time later that he realizes he’d subconsciously switched his chant again. _True,_ he’d been reciting as he’d completed each of the first sets. _Alpha’s,_ he’d recited, as he’d completed the second. 

_Beta,_ he finishes, the thought no longer automatic; subconscious; unthinking. He stares down at his hands.

He lets his head thunk back against the bathroom door behind himself, his eyes seeking out the ceiling.

The next morning, he’s awake before Theo, but only because he didn’t really sleep. He’d climbed back into bed at one point, and he’d slept _some_ —he’d woken up crusty-eyed and heavy-limbed at around three o’clock, he remembers—but by the time dawn had been breaking he’d been up, and showered, and screwing around on his phone to kill time.

He’d had even more of it _to_ kill, since he’d turned off Theo’s alarm again. And this time Theo hadn’t woken up immediately without it.

When he _does_ finally wake up, he’s groggy, and slow-moving; it takes him a full minute to realize what Liam had done. His expression spasms and he jerks his head around to look at Liam—Liam prepared, almost _desperate_ for the fight—and then he bites his lip, and looks away.

“Sorry,” he murmurs, and Liam almost wants to _scream._

Instead he just shrugs. “It’s fine,” he says, though very little is. “We should stop by somewhere and get breakfast once you’ve showered,” he adds, because sometimes they don’t, but today Theo is in desperate need of the fuel; he smells slightly sharp in Liam’s nose, like a battery half-depleted.

He sits on the edge of his unmade bed and watches Theo get ready, stumbling first into the shower, and then _out_ of it, his hair damp as he rambles uncharacteristically on about their itinerary, and all of it interspersed with jaw-cracking yawns. Liam listens for as long as he can bear it, this weight in his chest because his and Theo’s silences have _rarely_ been uncomfortable, and he doesn’t know what to do with the fact that Theo won’t let one settle between them, and then he grits his teeth.

He interrupts, “Theo,” and waits until Theo jerks around to look at him, eyes just the slightest bit wide. “I’m driving,” Liam tells him, a statement of _fact,_ and a whole host of punctuation marks chase themselves across Theo’s face—Theo apparently too tired to corral them—and then he bites his lip.

He doesn’t argue. After a second he fishes his keys out of his jean’s pocket from where he’d already tucked them, and he tosses them to Liam without a word.

Liam catches them. He stands up, and he steps past Theo to lead the way down towards Theo’s car.

\---

Later, Liam’s still off-footed from his conversation with Theo in the car— _Theo, come on, I can’t leave Beacon Hills,_ and the hesitant way that Theo had pointed out, _Scott would find a way, if you asked him_ —that when they pull up to the Fahrners—no escort needed onto _their_ property—he almost forgets his very real, very _gut-tightening_ dread of seeing Cassidy.

Theo can sense it, clearly.

But he doesn’t seem to know what to _do_ with it as he slowly releases his seatbelt. _Maybe it shouldn’t all be on Scott anymore,_ Liam can very nearly _see_ him remembering. _Maybe someone else should have to make some sacrifices sometimes._ When Liam had spat that at him a little over a hundred uncomfortable miles ago, he’d meant _himself,_ but—further paving his own personal road to hell with all his good, _useless_ intentions—he knows that Theo had internalized it, too.

He’d seen the way that Theo had _flinched,_ his right hand nearly reaching for his tattoos before he’d stopped himself, and had turned towards the window instead. 

“We’ll be quick,” Theo finally offers quietly. 

He means _he’d_ be quick. Liam remembers, abruptly, seeing Theo and Cassidy’s dad together at his first UCLA supernatural homecoming event; he remembers Cassidy saying, _You should go rescue your friend before my dad like, kidnaps him to consummate their ridiculous bromance._

He remembers the way that Theo had laughed, wide and easy and unselfconscious at something Cassidy’s dad had said, even with the way he’d spent that night surrounded by people who’d looked at him, and had only seen his tattoos.

“It’s—” _fine,_ Liam starts to say, _meaning_ it, but he doesn’t get the chance to finish; Theo had already shoved open his door, and stepped outside by the time he gets to the second word. Liam stares after him through the windshield for a few seconds, and then he drops his head back against the headrest, and stares sightlessly up at the roof of the car for a single breath, two.

He gets out, and goes to follow Theo up the Fahrner’s drive.

It’s a massive house, as all pack houses seem to be: stuffed with seemingly-endless amounts of rooms for pack members to fill at a moment’s notice. As it is Liam can tell that there’s a good chunk of the Fahrner pack _around:_ there’s clinking and the sound of chopping from the kitchen; the noise of some kind of sporting event blaring from a television, complete with bursts of jeers and cheers; not to mention random pockets of conversation emanating from all corners of the house.

Liam finds something in himself settling as he absorbs all the good-natured commotion. He experiences a brief, _intense_ moment of nostalgia for the remembered stuffed-full feel of the McCall-Argent condo, and the Stilinski house, and his own backyard when the pack— _his_ pack—had all crammed inside them for whatever reason. For good ones, for bad ones; for no reason at all.

He glances at Theo. There’s a soft subtle curve to Theo’s lips that’s just _barely_ there, if you didn’t know how to look.

Liam knows how to look.

He’s caught up enough in looking that he doesn’t fully realize they’ve reached the Fahrner’s front door until it suddenly flies open, and Cassidy’s dad appears grinning in the doorway.

“Theo!” He greets, loud and gregarious, and when Theo—his face now split in his own wide grin—accepts his offered forearm, Cassidy’s dad uses it to pull him into a quick, one-armed embrace.

“Alpha Fahrner,” Theo returns when he pulls back, and his smile hasn’t dimmed at _all._ Cassidy’s dad makes a face and releases Theo’s forearm to instead drop his own arm over Theo’s shoulders, which he then uses to shake Theo lightly.

“I’m sorry?” He challenges. “What was that?”

Liam doesn’t get it but _Theo_ does: he laughs, and lets himself be shaken, and corrects, “Carlos.”

Behind Cassidy’s dad—Carlos—in the hallway leading up to the doorway, Cassidy gives an exaggerated _gag;_ Liam sees it over Carlos’ shoulder. She appears in the doorway behind her father, and then leans against the jamb.

“Hey, Liam,” she greets, and her dad probably doesn’t catch it, but _Theo_ —and Liam _,_ for that matter—definitely do: her voice is a little cool.

“Hey, Cassidy,” he all but mumbles, and hasn’t quite managed to wipe the grimace off his face by the time Theo glances back at him, clearly checking up on him.

His expression sobers. He pulls back from Carlos. “Thanks for letting us interrupt your day,” he says, a little more formally. Liam smothers a wince. “Deaton said—”

But Carlos waves a dismissive hand, and winds up talking over Theo as he says, “You’re not interrupting anything. This is just a normal summer day around _chez Fahrner,_ huh?” He snags his daughter by the shoulders now, and shakes _her._

“ _Dad,_ ” Cassidy complains, and eels out from underneath his arm.

Carlos grins, dad points scored for the day or whatever. He turns back to Theo. “I’ve got Deaton’s book, but I’ve also got something else to show you, if you’ve got the time?” His hopeful look would be hilarious under any other circumstances. 

Under _these_ circumstances, the look on Theo’s face just goes a little pinched. “I’d love to,” he starts to say, “but we—”

“—have plenty of time,” Liam interrupts, before he can finish. Theo jerks around to look at him but Liam just ignores him, and focuses on Carlos. “You’d be doing _me_ a favor at least. I’m beginning to feel like a pretzel, being folded-up in the car for so long.”

“Ah, Beta Dunbar,” Carlos says, blinking. Liam can see him realizing that he’d skipped over greeting Liam in his enthusiasm to greet _Theo._ Liam smiles at him to dismiss the silent calculation in his eyes as to whether Liam had found the oversight insulting, and _means it;_ he’s never been so grateful to be overlooked in his _life._ Theo’s easy laugh when Carlos had pulled him in is still ringing a little in his ears. 

“Take him for as long as you like,” Liam continues, shooting a sly-mouthed grin at Theo. “Maybe I can, ah—” he nods towards the fields and woods surrounding the Fahrner’s property, “—stretch my legs a bit?”

“I’ll show him around,” Cassidy offers, pushing off the door jamb to come stand by Liam’s side. She rolls her eyes slightly at her father, and Theo standing next to him. “It’ll spare me from hearing you two nerding out over some ridiculous dusty map.”

Liam thinks she means it as a hypothetical example but Theo’s mouth drops open. He turns to Carlos and demands, “You _found_ it?”

“I found it!” Carlos agrees, sounding a little _gleeful._

Theo takes a step forward—clearly about to follow Carlos into the house to go see this dusty map—but then he hesitates, and glances over his shoulder at Liam. Liam just gives him a lopsided grin that he doesn’t even have to dredge up: it just breaks right over his face on its own. _Go,_ he mouths. 

Theo grins back at him, smaller and a little secret, and goes.

Cassidy stares after them in benign disgust for a few seconds, and then shakes her head. “C’mon,” she tells Liam, and starts jogging down the porch steps away from the house, and towards the land surrounding it.

“Thanks,” Liam murmurs to her, a half-minute or so later when they’ve made it down to the end of the drive, and Cassidy has turned to lead him away along a worn foot trail that winds off into a copse of trees.

Cassidy shrugs. “I wasn’t joking about not needing to hear the renewal of my dad and your friend’s—”

“—bromance?” Liam fills in, grinning. Cassidy grins back, and then rolls her eyes.

“Your friend is a giant nerd, by the way,” Cassidy assures him. “If you didn’t already know.”

Liam feels something hot flutter in his chest. It’s one of Theo’s worst kept secrets so Liam _does_ know; he just hasn’t seen it so blatantly on display in a while. He gives Cassidy his own shrug. “He’s something, alright.”

It’s a meaningless response; space-filler. Cassidy doesn’t say anything back, just keeps leading him through the trees, and then across the field stretching out behind it. Liam finds his breath catching, a little: it’s beautiful.

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Cassidy’s lips quirk, pleased.

She leads him over to a split-rail fence, and then hops gracefully up onto one of the beams. After a moment’s hesitation, Liam hops up next to her. He hooks the top of his feet over the railing below, and jams his hands back in his pockets, and stares out at the rolling expanse of gently waving grass in front of him, spiky metal towers rising from the earth strung with power lines cutting across the vista. He follows them with his eyes as far as he can.

He and Cassidy haven’t spoken all summer, so they spend a few minutes just idly catching up: what’d the other do with their freedom so far; what classes was the other taking next semester; why was UCLA so bad at scheduling mandatory classes at any time _other_ than eight in the morning? Liam spends the whole time wary, conscious of Jermayne unmentioned-but-hovering-in-the-background, as he tries to pick his way carefully through the conversation. 

Cassidy seems to realize what he’s doing and seems to be _not at all_ impressed, because after a while she gives an exaggerated huff, her whole _body_ seeming to slump with her irritation. “Jesus, Dunbar,” she complains, turning to glower at him. “Would you stop acting like a kicked puppy?”

Liam jumps, and turns to look at her with—what are admittedly probably puppy-dog eyes. “What?”

Cassidy rolls her eyes, and lifts a hand from where she’d had it wrapped around the railing as a brace, and uses it to shove Liam sideways. He falls flailing off the fence with a squawk. 

“Stop it,” Cassidy orders him, as he’s lying in the dirt trying to detangle himself from the fence. Liam looks up at her with wounded eyes that are maybe a little bit more intentional this time. “Ugh!” She complains, and flicks a dismissive hand through the air.

Liam grins, and doesn’t bother trying to continue getting up.

But the moment sobers fast. Cassidy sighs, and kicks her feet against the railing as she tells him quietly, “Look, I get it, alright?”

Liam frowns at her, because that’s sure as hell _news to him._ He’d fled entire _buildings_ last semester when he’d sensed Cassidy coming into them. “You do?”

“ _Well,_ ” Cassidy says, a little severely. “I don’t exactly get why you started dating Jermayne _in the first place,_ given the circumstances.” 

Liam winces, and looks guiltily away, because honestly: fair. 

“But,” Cassidy continues, more softly, “I don’t blame you. I couldn’t leave my pack either.”

Liam feels his expression crumple up, and he pulls his legs into his chest as he sits up. He wraps his arms loosely around his knees, though not before snagging a few stalks of grass that he begins to methodically shred.

“Yeah,” he mumbles, and that’d been part of it. Of _course_ that’d been part of it—the idea of living on the literal other side of the _country_ from Scott, and Mason, and Corey, and the rest of the pack, had been enough to freeze his breath in his chest when he’d first tried to imagine it—but it hadn’t been the _only_ part.

It hadn’t been the part that he’d snapped at Theo this morning, when Theo had tried to point out that Lydia and Stiles and Derek had left: _they’re not Scott’s first beta, are they?_

They weren’t _the_ _true alpha’s beta._

“Yeah,” Liam says more strongly, the words suddenly _pushing_ at this throat, his tongue, wanting out. Cassidy is a born-wolf. Her father is the alpha, and while she wasn’t the likely heir of his powers, that didn’t mean that she wouldn’t _get it._ Or that she _couldn’t,_ if Liam could just unstick his jaw long enough to give her the chance to. “That was part of it, sure, but it was also—”

His and Cassidy’s heads both snap up, a muted roar in the distance. Cassidy looks heavenward. “God, he could just _call,_ ” she complains, hopping down from the fence. “Phones are a _thing._ ”

She looks over at him, and squints.

“Sorry,” she says. “Were you going to say something?”

Liam shakes his head.

“No,” he assures her, swallowing down every last sour word that’d dammed itself up behind his teeth. “No, nothing.”

She grins at him, and offers him a hand up. Liam takes it after only a split-second of hesitation. 

\---

Argent calls while they’re literally in the process of walking out of their motel room door the next morning, and so Liam installs himself back on his bed as Theo answers, and pulls out his phone to tap out a quick text to Mason.

_**Liam Dunbar:** What do you know about the Gauthier clan?_

He glances up at Theo while he waits for a response, but Theo isn’t paying him any attention; he’d thrown his bag back aside and shut the door so that they had some modicum of privacy, but then he’d gone to hover by the room’s window as he listens intently to whatever Argent is saying to him. Still, Liam curls onto his side so that he’s facing away from Theo, and taps his thumb impatiently against his phone screen. Finally Mason replies.

_**Mason Hewitt:**???_

_**Mason Hewitt:** Oh shit is that where you’re headed next?!?!?!_

Liam makes a face; _that_ can’t be a good sign. He types out an affirmative and sends it, and then twists his head back over his shoulder to sneak a look at Theo while he waits for Mason‘s reply. Theo has one arm crossed over his chest, his other holding his phone up to his ear, and his eyes are distant as he stares sightlessly out the window. Liam bites his lip, and turns back to his phone.

_**Mason Hewitt:** You need to be super careful, dude. They’re the OLDEST SCHOOL._

Liam resists making another face. 

_**Liam Dunbar:** That’s what *Theo* said. But what the hell does that actually *mean*?_

The little dot-dot-dots of Mason typing pop up. Across the room, Theo is saying “Right, yeah. I explained that. Gaven will be there to take delivery.”

_**Mason Hewitt:** The Law is everything to them. They treat it like gospel, and they’re *really* inflexible about it._

Liam gnaws his lip some more. He gets up. “I’ve got to get something out of my bag,” he mutters to Theo when Theo shoots him a questioning glance. Theo just digs his keys out of his pocket, and tosses them over.

Liam catches them, and heads out to Theo’s car.

Liam had already jammed his bag into the back of Theo’s car so he pops the hatch, and then ducks underneath it to snag it, and drag it towards him. It’s a duffel so it’s lacking pockets, and besides—Liam had buried this particular item at the bottom, hidden underneath all his clothes. He spends a few seconds wiggling it free before he can fully yank it out.

He shoves his bag aside, and lays the spiral notebook on the floor of the trunk. The edges of the pages are softened from use, and age, and Liam’s habit of throwing his supplies around, so it takes him a moment to find the dog-eared page he’s looking for when he puts his thumb to the top right corner, and starts flipping through them. But he finds it, and picks up the notebook before folding the rest of the pages around on the spiral binding. He drops it back down. He runs his eyes quickly over the page.

 _Not it,_ he realizes, and flips to the next page. It takes two more pages to find what he’s looking for. 

His handwriting is nearly _illegible._ He’d been writing so fast, and so desperately, as Deaton had talked that day in the animal clinic that he’d smeared the ink from his pen; he has to spend a few seconds squinting at what he’d written to try and decipher it. He bites his lip. He glances up, and out, towards the motel room where Theo is still talking to Argent.

He takes out his phone again, and spends a precious thirty seconds flipping through every potentially relevant page of his notes, taking picture after picture. He stuffs his notebook back into his bag after.

He’s just zipping it up, and shoving it back aside, when the door to their room opens and Theo steps out. He’s got his phone still in his hand and a distracted look on his face, and when he comes over to toss his own bag into the trunk, he doesn’t seem to notice that Liam hadn’t actually seemed to retrieve anything out of his, contrary to Liam’s claim. 

“You need anything else from the room?” He just double-checks.

Liam shakes his head.

Theo goes to finish checking them out and Liam huddles into the front seat, pulling out his phone—making sure to angle it away from the window, so that Theo won’t be able to see the reflection—to start looking through the pictures he’d taken. He’s caught up enough in it that he doesn’t realize that Theo has returned until he hears Theo’s door creak open, and Theo climbs inside.

He spends a few moments getting himself settled—seatbelt on, _Start Engine_ button pressed, rearview adjusted since Liam was the last one to drive—and then he glances expectantly over at Liam. Liam frowns at him, confused.

Theo’s eyebrows climb. “You prefer the dulcet tones of silence?”

Liam rolls his eyes, and taps out of his photos app so that he can open his music app, instead. It takes some fiddling but he gets his phone hooked back up to Theo’s car, but once it’s chimed cheerfully to let him know the pairing was successful, he starts the playlist he’d picked out.

He goes right back to studying the pictures he’d taken of his notes from his first lesson with Deaton after.

But it turns out there’s absolutely _nothing_ in the notes he’d taken to help him figure out what to do about Chandler Gauthier pulling a wolfsbane-coated _knife_ from his belt, and jamming it up against Theo’s throat as he pins Theo back against the side of Theo’s car. Liam starts to jerk reflexively forward only to grind to an ungainly halt when Theo whips out a hand and harshly orders, “Liam, _don’t!_ ”

But Theo can’t even _look_ at him while he does it, because Chandler is holding the knife to his neck in such a way that if Theo tried, he’d cut open his own jugular. Liam stands practically _vibrating_ with tension a few feet away as Chandler gives his stupid wannabe _villain_ monologue, and then grabs Theo’s tattooed forearm in a _crushing_ grip and holds it up—holds the _Argent fleur-de-lis_ up—for all his Neanderthal buddies to sneer at. 

He wonders for a sickeningly helpless moment what he’ll do if he’s forced to stand here and watch Theo die for real this time; for keeps.

And then the roar of powerful engines cuts through the self-satisfied drone of Chandler’s voice, loud enough to completely drown out not only sound but _thought._ Liam _winces_ —his body half-shifted from the adrenaline, and the formless terror, that’d taken up root in his chest—and when he manages to squint his eyes open and look around as the roar cuts off, it’s to see an older man storm his way out of a massive, hulking black SUV and over to Chandler.

Chandler _quails_ back.

But that apparently doesn’t satisfy Gaven Gauthier. He all but _throws_ his son away from Theo, and the glare he levels at the other— _younger,_ Liam realizes with a cold jolt, _they’re all younger_ —hunters who’d followed his son’s lead is heated, and furious. He dismisses them all—he dismisses his _son_ —and turns back to Liam, and to Theo.

The both of them as a single unit, really, because the second Gaven had removed his son as an obstacle, Liam had _rushed_ forward into the space he’d vacated. It leaves him pressed up against Theo from chest to thigh but he doesn’t _care._ He barely _notices._

He braces one hand on Theo’s arm to steady himself and fits the other around Theo’s jaw, trying to lift it up so that he can get a better look at Theo’s neck.

“Beta Dunbar, Mr. Raeken,” Gaven says from behind him. “I apologize for my son, and his friends.” He takes a deep breath—Liam can hear the sounds of his lungs filling, his hearing still half-shifted—and then he breathes it steadily back out. “I meant to be here when you arrived.”

Theo isn’t cooperating with him; he keeps trying to jerk his chin free of Liam’s grip. “Then where the hell were you?” Liam spits back at Gaven, and gives up on lifting Theo’s chin to just press his fingertips directly to the skin of Theo’s neck instead, looking for a cut. 

“ _Liam,_ ” Theo hisses, but Liam ignores him. He doesn’t _think_ he can feel any broken skin, but what if the wolfsbane had like, coated it? He drags the pad of his thumb across the place where he remembers the knife sitting, alert for any tingling that would indicate the poison’s presence.

But then Gaven answers, “Something came up, and we had a limited window to seize the opportunity offered,” and Liam feels _unease_ climb its way rapidly up his spine. 

He freezes, and twists around. He can sense Theo staring fixedly past him as well.

One of Gaven’s men—an _older_ hunter—pulls open the door to Gaven’s SUV, and reaches inside. He drags out a bound younger man, and doesn’t seem at all concerned when the man can’t keep his feet as he’s dumped onto the ground, and falls onto his knees, and zip-tied hands, instead. 

The younger man looks drunkenly up, and his eyes flare werewolf gold. Liam sucks in a sharp, startled breath.

All around the lot there’s silence but for the harsh, uneven breathing of the clearly-drugged werewolf. Liam stares, and stares, and stares.

And then he jumps when Theo suddenly clears his throat, and says, “If you’ve brought him here, I assume his alpha has been alerted.”

LIam whips around to look at him, but Theo isn’t looking back; he’s looking at _Gaven._ His perfectly even, perfectly _diplomatic_ expression is back on his face. 

Liam swallows.

He looks back at Gaven as Gaven replies, “His alpha is dead.” Liam stiffens—and beneath the hand Liam still has on his arm, Liam can feel that Theo does, too—but Gaven just continues, “He was out of control, as this one—” he nods towards the drunkenly weaving werewolf on the ground, “—can attest.”

“He’s just bitten,” Theo realizes.

“A few days ago,” Gaven agrees.

“Then what are you—” Liam starts to demand, _heedless_ of the way that Theo whips his hand around so that _he’s_ holding onto _Liam_ , his fingertips digging _bruisingly_ tight into Liam’s forearm.

“Exercising our jurisdiction over a dangerous omega,” Chandler cuts in, and _sneers_ at Liam when Liam whips around to look at him, Liam’s nostrils flaring, “as granted to us by the authority of the Law.”

“ _Dangerous?_ ” Liam starts to reply, incredulous. He looks back down at the apparent-omega, who looks about as _dangerous_ as a limp piece of spaghetti. “He—”

“—crippled a hunter,” Chandler finishes for him, and there’s something bright and hard and _satisfied_ in his eyes as he says it. 

“The situation,” Gaven interrupts, before Liam can respond, which is probably for the best since Liam has no idea what he’d been about to _say_ , “is quite complex. I’m happy to explain, if you’ll wait for me in my study. Mr. Raeken, I assume you remember…?”

“I do,” Theo assures him. 

“I’ll join you there shortly,” Gaven tells him, and then he turns to the hunter who’d pulled the omega out of the car. 

_Take him to the basement,_ he orders the hunter in a low voice that Liam wouldn’t catch if his hearing wasn’t still half-shifted. _Stay with him, do you understand me?_

Liam barely hears him. He barely _sees_ the way that Gaven shoots a quick, _wary_ glance at his son, who’d circled up with a handful of his cronies and is talking rapidly to them. He rushes after Theo, who’d started heading at a quick pace towards the house.

“Theo!” He hisses, grabbing Theo’s arm and dragging him to a stop. 

Or trying to, anyway. Theo shakes him off, and then _snarls_ near-silently at him when Liam tries to regain his grip. Instead he grabs _Liam,_ and starts hauling him quickly into the house. He doesn’t stop moving until they reach what must be Gaven’s study, and then he practically _throws_ Liam inside. He shuts the door after himself as he follows Liam in.

But Liam doesn’t give him a chance to speak first. He rushes forward, and back into Theo’s space. “We have to do something. We have to—” He cuts himself off. He wheels out of Theo’s space, his hands rising to _rake_ painfully back through his hair.

He turns back to Theo.

“You know what they’re going to do, they’ve already made up their minds. They’re _old school,_ that’s what you said,” Liam reminds him breathlessly. “And that means—!”

“I know what it means,” Theo snaps.

“Theo!” Liam insists. “They’re going to _kill him!_ That’s the punishment for crippling—!”

“I _know!_ ” Theo interrupts, loud enough that he immediately grimaces at his own volume, and lowers it. “I know.”

“We can’t let this happen. If he’s just a few days old as a werewolf there’s no _way_ he meant to hurt anybody. We _can’t_ —” Liam starts to recite, the words falling out of his mouth almost as fast as he’s thinking them.

“Liam—” Theo tries.

Liam whips back around to face Theo. “What are we going to _do?_ ” He demands. “What—”

“Liam!” Theo quietly shouts, and gets one hand wrapped around the back of Liam’s skull, and his other palm flattened over Liam’s mouth. 

He looks Liam dead in the eye. He answers:

“You are going to _trust me,_ okay?”

Liam stares at him. Theo’s jaw tightens. He loosens his hand around the back of Liam’s head, and lets his other hand fall away from Liam’s mouth. 

He asks, “Do you trust me?”

And the answer to that is obvious. Liam doesn’t even have to _think_ about it. “Yes,” he answers immediately.

Theo’s expression blanks a little with surprise. But the next second it tightens right back up.

“Then _trust me,_ ” he requests. 

Liam doesn’t have time to answer him. The door to the study opens, and Gaven and Chandler Gauthier step through.


	2. Chapter 2

_The situation is complex,_ Gaven had said, but Liam thinks the problem is that it’s actually exceedingly _simple._

“You can’t do this,” he insists with a step forward after Gaven has finished his _explanation_ , and while he _recognizes_ Theo snapping out an arm across his chest, it’s only in the sense that he realizes he’s no longer making physical forward progress; the pressure barely registers.

Gaven’s eyes are hard. “I assure you I can.”

And he can. Liam _knows_ he can. He remembers hearing about this particular provision of the Law as Deaton had talked him through some of the most important ones that he thought Liam might need to know. He remembers _reading_ about it when he and Mason and Scott and the rest of the pack had been desperately pouring through the Council’s cases, trying to prepare for Theo’s trial. 

He knows that Gaven can do exactly what he’s planning on doing, just like Quentin had been able to use the Law against Theo all those years ago. 

Just like the Council had been able to use it to sentence Theo to death as a result. 

“Okay, well, then you _shouldn’t_ do this,” he says, and while he’s saying it to Gaven behind his desk _today_ , he’s _really_ saying it _then_ to Araya Calaveras, and Yael Leitner, and the rest of the cold, unsympathetic faces that had stared out at Theo from behind the Council’s deceptively simple-looking wooden table in their deceptively simple-looking courtroom. 

He can hear the _plea_ in his own voice; he doesn’t know whether Theo or Gaven can. He tries taking another step forward, and it’s not a threat. It’s _beseeching,_ but it doesn’t matter. Theo’s arm is still banded across his chest. 

Gaven leans back in his chair, his fingers wrapped firmly around and underneath the armrests as he looks steadily back at Liam. “He crippled a hunter.”

“ _You_ were the one who said he didn’t mean to!” Just like a nine year-old Theo had never _meant_ to be kidnapped by the Dread Doctors, and brainwashed into being their perfect attack dog. Liam can’t move farther forward but he needs to move _somewhere,_ so he moves backwards instead. “He was _newly bitten._ He didn’t know _what_ the hell he was doing.”

Liam had been so focused on Gaven that he’d forgotten about Chandler, but he sure as hell remembers him when Chandler scoffs, “I’m sure that’s of great comfort to the man whose spine he severed.”

Liam feels his mouth start to fill with fangs; can’t stop it. He opens his mouth to respond, but then stops, jerking.

“You said,” Theo cuts in, and he doesn’t look away from Gaven—he doesn’t look at _Liam_ —while he speaks, “that the rogue alpha who bit him has already been—” he pauses, just for a split-second, _less,_ but Liam still catches it, “—dealt with.” 

His scent is as bitter as his words are perfectly neutral; Liam can’t stop the low, rumbling _growl_ that rises his chest as he catches a mouthful of it. As he silently repeats _dealt with,_ and wonders if the Gauthiers had _dealt with_ the alpha using a gun, or one of their wolfsbane-coated knives, or—the old Argent classic—a broadsword.

“What about one of the local packs?” Theo is saying, heedless of all this. “If _they_ take him—”

But Gaven cuts him off. “They won’t. I already asked. They refused.”

“What?” Liam can’t help demanding, _bafflement_ momentarily overtaking his fury. If _he_ knew the consequences of the Law faced by the werewolf, then the alphas of the _packs_ Gaven would have approached sure as shit did. “Why the hell would they—?”

Gaven blows out a low, rough breath, and he looks back at Liam from where he’d switched his attention to Theo _._ Gaven’s eyes are wary. _Good,_ Liam thinks. He can feel his nostrils flare as the shift surges and slouches under his skin.

“They didn’t say,” Gaven answers, sympathy in his voice like oil glossing a mirror, and just as deceptively _slick;_ Liam doesn’t buy it for a _second_. “But if I had to guess, I’d assume their hesitation has to do with packs’ general reluctance to take in members with—known histories of violence against hunters.”

Liam can feel his brow furrow, and then almost immediately _clear._ “Shocking,” he spits out, and there’s _more_ than half a growl in his voice now, “that they would be afraid of _retaliation,_ given our warm reception earlier.”

He’s so focused on Gaven that Theo suddenly spinning around and getting a hand in his collar comes as a complete surprise. He _stumbles_ into Theo as Theo yanks him forward, but his startlement doesn’t last long; he opens his mouth to snarl something at _Theo,_ except Theo beats him to it.

“ _Stop,_ ” he orders, low and under his breath but _firm;_ immovable. “This is _not_ helping.”

 _Stop,_ Scott had hissed in Liam’s ear that horrible, _awful_ day at Theo’s trial, Scott’s hand still _digging_ into the meat of Liam’s arm from where he’d yanked Liam back down after Liam’s first outburst at the Council. _You’re not helping._

Liam _stares,_ all his fury knocked loose like a skid jumping its tracks. When Theo shoves him back as he turns to refocus on Gaven, Liam goes without a fight. 

He keeps staring at the back of Theo’s head, expression _raw._

“Hunter Gauthier,” Theo says, his voice perfectly even, perfectly _calm,_ at least until he adds, “ _Please._ ” Liam can hear his throat click as Theo swallows. “One of the California packs will take him. I _know_ they will. Shohreh—” Liam twitches at the mention of her name, and his anger starts to spark back up, “—or Nina. I just need a few hours to talk to them, work out a plan for getting the omega to them.”

 _Trust me,_ Theo had said, and this is what he’d meant. _You’re going to trust me,_ he’d ordered, but really he’d been _begging_ , and so Liam forces himself to take a deep breath, and tries to do just that.

But then Chandler snaps, “ _Why_ are we even still talking about this? We did what the Law required. We offered the local packs a chance to take him in, and they refused. We are not _obligated,_ ” he continues, and his voice takes on a _nasty_ edge, “to keep trying to find a _no-kill_ shelter—”

Liam can’t have heard right. “A no-kill shelter?” He repeats, his voice so blank with his shock that it sounds like someone had taken his words and scrubbed them entirely clean before shoving them back into his mouth to be said. 

But the shock doesn’t last. 

“A no-kill—!” He starts to repeat a second time, all his banked fury flaring _right back_ into raging flame, and he doesn’t realize that he’s _lunged_ forward until he’s jerked to a sudden stop, Theo having whipped around to catch him.

“ _Liam!_ ” Theo hisses, shoving Liam back a step. “ _Stop._ ”

 _Liam, stop,_ Scott had ordered him that day at Theo’s trial. _You’re not helping._

“He crippled a hunter!” Chandler snarls right back, taking a step forward to make up for the one that Theo hadn’t let _Liam_ take. “That _can’t_ be allowed to go unanswered!”

“Enough!” Gaven yells, and it’s the _slam_ of his both of his hands down on the sturdy wood of his desk as he stands that really snaps Liam out of it. 

_Get him_ out _of here,_ Argent had snarled in very nearly Gaven’s same tone, and that’s when Derek had grabbed Liam, and started dragging him out of the courtroom, and away from Theo convinced he was going to die. Liam had raged and yelled and fought back and all it’d gotten him was a faceful of mud when Derek had pinned him down outside and told him, _this isn’t a monster for you to beat, okay? It isn’t a fight you can win._

Liam freezes, and glances up at Theo. 

Theo looks back. He mouths, _trust me._

He turns back around to face Gaven. He turns back around to face Gaven just like Scott had faced the _Council,_ just days after Scott had knelt at Liam’s feet and _promised_ him that he had a plan to save Theo. Liam hadn’t been in the courtroom when Scott had brought his plan to fruition—he’d been outside, with a faceful of mud, because Argent had ordered _get him_ out _of here;_ because Liam had acted young, and naive, and exactly like Argent had warned him not to—so he’d missed it when Scott had said: _I take responsibility for him! For Theo Raeken!_

He’d missed it when Scott had saved Theo’s life.

He stares at the back of Theo’s head. Something has cracked open in his chest, and the jagged edges of it are _sawing_ at his lungs every time he tries to breathe. 

“Hunter Gauthier,” Theo repeats, and if Liam didn’t know him as well as he does, he wouldn’t hear the slight tremble there. He _knows_ Gaven and Chandler don’t; Theo must sound perfectly even, and perfectly calm, to them. “Your son is right, and you’ve done everything the Law requires. I _know_ you’re not required to show the omega any more mercy—”

 _Mercy?_ Liam thinks. _Mercy?_ He nearly demands. The only _mercy_ Gaven and his brutish son and his cult-like clan had shown the young omega currently drugged up and bound within their basement was the kind that the Council had shown Theo: the opportunity to live under the constant threat of their judgement, and to die when it most suited them. 

_Stop,_ he tells himself, like Scott had told him; like Theo had. _This isn’t helping._

He forces down the shift. He forces down his _anger._ He inhales, and then he exhales, and then he reminds himself: _you’re the true alpha’s beta._

He refocuses on Theo. Theo who’d been saying: _I know you’re not required to show the omega anymore mercy—_

“—than you already have,” Theo is concluding, oblivious or not to Liam’s reactions behind him. “But I am asking— _we_ are asking—you and your clan to show a little more.”

But Liam doesn’t think the Gauthiers are the _merciful_ type. He thinks they’re— _old school,_ like Theo had said; like Mason had said. Theo is asking for mercy but what the Gauthiers respect is the _Law;_ that’s what Mason had told him: _they treat it like gospel._ Liam looks away from Theo, and closes his eyes, and pulls up in his mind the pictures he’d taken of his notes; the notes that he’d memorized in the car this morning, page by painstaking page and mile by painstaking mile. 

He thinks, _Article nine, chapter two._ He silently recites, _The first beta of a Pack shall be known as the ‘second,’ and this second shall have the power…,_ until he’s sure he’s got the wording _exactly_ right.

He opens his eyes.

“He needs a pack,” he says, cutting Theo off just as Theo had been opening his mouth to speak. “If he has a pack, this whole debate is moot, right?”

Gaven and Chandler both startle and look over at him. Theo twists around to look back at him. 

Liam doesn’t look at him. He doesn’t look at Chandler.

He looks at Gaven.

“In essence,” Gaven answers after a moment.

“Great,” Liam says. _Article nine, chapter two._ “Then the McCall pack offers him a place.”

Theo’s mouth drops open. _Article nine, chapter two,_ Liam repeats forcefully to himself, instead of letting himself look over.

Gaven gets his expression back under control a lot faster than Theo does. “Beta Dunbar—” He tries.

“Nice try, _Beta_ Dunbar,” Chandler sneers, talking over his father. “But I don’t see McCall _around_ anywhere, so—”

“I’m—” _the true alpha’s beta,_ “—Scott’s second, _Hunter Gauthier,_ ” Liam snaps back. He meets Chandler’s eyes. “You want me to cite chapter and verse of the Law?” 

_Article nine, chapter two,_ Liam repeats, a little desperately now. _The first beta of a Pack shall be known as the ‘second,’ and this second shall have the power…_

He glares back at Chandler. He challenges, “You know I have the authority.”

Theo is still staring at him. Liam can’t— _won’t_ —look at him. When Chandler doesn’t take him up on his challenge—Liam more than a little relieved, his tongue feeling heavy, and leaden, and like it might’ve gotten tangled up around the words if he’d been forced to try to say them—he looks at Gaven instead. 

_Article nine, chapter two,_ he recites. _The first beta of a Pack shall be known as the ‘second,’ and this second shall have the power…_

“The McCall pack,” Liam repeats, and he hadn’t been there when Scott had said _I take responsibility for him! For Theo Raeken!_ because Argent had ordered _get him_ out _of here_ —because Liam had acted young, and naive—but he tries to straighten his shoulders like he imagines Scott’s were, that day; he tries to make his voice as steady as he imagines Scott’s was, “offers him a place.”

He thinks his voice comes out more _true alpha’s beta_ than _true alpha._ He lets it go. He keeps looking at Gaven.

Gaven watches him in silence. When Chandler goes to open his mouth, Gaven snaps out a hand in warning, and Chandler desists. Gaven doesn’t look away from Liam.

“The omega would have to accept,” he finally points out.

“Great,” Liam replies, his voice still _true alpha’s beta_ calm _._ “Let’s get him in here and ask him, then.”

\---

He nearly gets sick on the way out to Theo’s car.

“Come on,” Theo just orders, low and under his breath and hooking Liam underneath one arm to drag him back upright, and forward, as Liam’s knees weaken and he starts to stumble. 

It’s an impressive feat considering that he’s holding the still-drugged omega— _Alec_ —up on his other side, Theo’s arm around Alec’s waist and one of Alec’s arms looped over his shoulder. Liam bites back a sickly groan.

He mumbles, “Theo _—_ ”

But Theo just jostles him, intentionally or not, and snaps, “ _Not here._ ”

They’re still in the Gauthier’s drive, after all. Theo may have politely refused Gaven’s help in getting Alec—getting the McCall pack’s _newest member_ —out to Theo’s car, but that doesn’t mean that the Gauthier clan isn’t _watching_. Liam can feel their eyes burning into his back, the side of his head, from where Gaven and Chandler are stood on their house’s front porch, Gaven with his arms crossed and Chandler with his hands braced wide on the railing. Dotted around the property, hunters stop to straighten up, and watch their uneven forward progress as Theo drags them all determinedly towards his car.

He shoves Liam up against the side of it when they get there. Liam doesn’t need to be instructed what to do: he practically _lunges_ for the handle to the passenger door, wanting to put the metal, and glass, of it in between him and the still-watching Gauthier clan. He gets himself _thrown_ into the passenger seat and _slams_ the door back shut behind himself, and hunches over as he buries his face in his hands. 

It doesn’t stop him from being able to hear it when Theo yanks open the door to the backseat, and gets Alec half-shoved into it. It doesn’t stop him from hearing it when Theo leans over Alec—now half-slumped in the nearest seat—to get his seatbelt fastened, and Alec starts mumbling, “Thank you. _Thank you._ ”

Liam’s gorge rises. He presses the back of one wrist to his mouth, and tries to swallow the shaky, desperate sound he nearly gives. 

“You’re welcome,” Theo just replies to Alec every time, absent but soothing; the sound of his voice more important than the words. “Can you sit up some? You’re welcome.”

 _Oh god,_ Liam thinks to himself, _what have you_ done?

Theo gets Alec as settled as he’s going to be, considering his still-drugged state, and then rips himself back out of the backseat, and slams the door shut behind himself. He hurries around the hood of the car and into the driver’s seat, wasting no time as he does; he hits the _Start Engine_ button with one hand even as he’s pulling his door back shut with the other. He gets his seatbelt on even as he’s shifting his car out of park, and into drive. 

He puts his foot down on the gas. He gets them _out_ of there.

“Liam—” he checks, as they’re leaving the Gauthier’s property. 

Liam twists his head around to look over at him, his body still hunched over. He can feel how hooded, and heavy, his eyelids are. He can tell how _raw_ his expression is.

From the backseat, there’s the sudden sharp sting of blood. Both Theo and Liam immediately whip around.

Alec stares drunkenly back, blood on his bottom lip from where his shifted fangs had apparently caught it. “ _Fuck,_ ” Liam swears, and turns back forward. He closes his eyes, and sucks in quick, harsh breaths through his nose, trying to slow his breathing. Trying to slow his _heartbeat._

It doesn’t really work. Every time he breathes he catches Alec’s scent, overlaid on top of his and Theo’s and the _pack’s_ — _Alec’s_ pack, too, now—and he thinks again: _what have you done?_

_What have you done? What have you done? What have you done?_

He snaps a hand forward to brace it against the console, needing the grounding touch of _something._ In the backseat Alec bites off a surprised, hurt sound. There’s a sudden jagged tearing noise as—Alec frees his shifted claws from the seat cushions, Liam bets. 

Liam’s own claws punch through the thick plastic of the console. Theo glances sharply over at him, but doesn’t say a word.

 _Say something,_ Liam wants to beg. _Say anything_. Theo’s tattoos are shining in the late afternoon sunlight pouring through the windshield, his left forearm outstretched with the way he has both hands clenched around the wheel. Liam hadn’t meant to but he’d stretched out his _own_ left forearm when he’d slammed it against the console. _That’s where Scott bit me,_ he remembers abruptly, his eyes falling to his own left wrist.

 _Oh god,_ he thinks, his gorge rising again. _What have you_ done?

Liam doesn’t know where he’d expected Theo to take them—he isn’t really capable of thinking about much, at all—but he’s still surprised when Theo bypasses every exit for every little nothing town they come across. _Where are we going?_ Liam wants to ask, but if he opens his mouth that isn’t going to be what comes out, and so he leaves it firmly shut, every word he wants to say damming themselves up against the cage of his gritted teeth.

And anyway, he understands _completely_ when Theo suddenly _does_ exit; when he exits right onto a turn-off to an out-of-the-way campground. _Who are you more worried about exploding in a town full of witnesses?_ Liam wonders, looking unsteadily over at him. _Alec, or me?_

He doesn’t wait for Theo to offer an explanation. He doesn’t _wait,_ at all. The second Theo pulls the car to a stop at one of the campground’s individual sites, Liam _throws_ open his door, and throws himself _out_ of the car, and takes off at a quick clip—at a _near run_ —for the woods boarding the camp. 

Theo calls after him precisely once.

Liam just keeps stumbling through the trees, his hands rising to grasp and brace against the trunks to help keep himself upright as rocks roll under his feet; as he catches the toes of his boots on tangled, grasping roots. When he falls—and he _does_ fall—he doesn’t bother to get back up, just stays on his hands and knees in the dirt, his gaze fixed sightlessly down between his hands. 

He digs his fingers—his _clawed_ fingers—down into the earth. He thinks: _what have you_ done?

One of Gaven’s older hunters had dragged Alec into the room on Gaven’s orders after Liam had made his offer, Alec stumbling and staggering and only keeping his feet because he didn’t have a choice in the matter. When they’d stopped he’d almost hit his knees, but Gaven had given the hunter escorting him a heated look, and the hunter had hauled Alec back up, and onto his feet. 

Alec had barely been able to focus on what was going on, he’d still been so disoriented from the wolfsbane serum that the Gauthier hunters had injected him with, and his _kidnapping,_ and the fact that he’d been turned into a werewolf, all without anything even vaguely resembling his say-so. His eyes had dragged drunkenly from Gaven, to Liam, to Theo, and back, as Gaven had explained the situation.

As he’d explained Alec’s only two options: accept Liam’s offer, or die.

His _single_ option, really. Of _course_ Alec had said yes. And then he’d said _thank you,_ over and over again, like he _hadn’t_ had all his choices forcibly stripped away from him, first by the rogue alpha that’d bit him, and then by the hunter clan that’d planned to execute him, and finally by _Liam,_ who’d offered Alec his only way out. 

His only way to _live._

Liam gets sick, finally, right there in the dirt.

Theo had been grateful too, he remembers, his body _wrenching_ as he dry-heaves. He’d stood in the middle of the Council’s barn—their _courtroom_ —with Liam, and he’d looked around after Liam had asked him, _how can you stand it here,_ and he’d said: _it’s not so bad._ He’d said: _Scott and Argent saved my_ life _here._

Just like Liam had saved Alec’s. 

Liam gives a _brutal,_ slack-mouthed _cry,_ his damp eyes squeezing _tightly_ shut. He clamps his teeth around his forearm to muffle the sound.

He clamps them right over the same spot that _Scott_ had bit _him_ to save _his_ life what feels like a lifetime ago, Liam still human and dangling off that hospital roof with absolutely _no_ idea how his life was about to change. When Liam realizes what he’d done his breath freezes in his chest, icy and painful and _absolute._

It shudders out of him the next second. He doesn’t move, just stays right there in the dirt with his teeth digging into his arm to quiet the sounds he gives, and with his eyes kept tightly shut as they burn, and fill, and spill over, and with his body shaking, and shaking, and shaking.

\---

But he calms eventually. The bitter irony of even the most chest-crushing emotion: the body—even his, even the body of a _true alpha’s beta_ —can’t sustain it. His shaky breathing evens out. His eyes dry.

He manages to unclamp his teeth—his jaw sore, and aching, for the few seconds it takes his healing to kick in and erase the pain—from around his forearm.

He sits back on his heels. Where before it’d felt like the _horror_ of what he’d done had swelled inside his ribcage, squeezing out his heart and lungs and filling his ribs from side-to-side, now it feels like his chest is just _hollow;_ missing all the vital organs he needs to survive. He scrubs the back of one wrist across his eyes, trying to clear the gritty, gunky feeling there. It’s accompanied just below by the stinging, smarting skin of his cheeks; salt-stained and dry.

 _What a fucking mess you are,_ Liam thinks to himself, and isn’t sure whether he means his current physical state or just—generally.

He forces the thought aside as he pushes himself to his feet; there’s water running nearby, he can hear it.

He picks his way over to the riverbank, more steady on his feet now than he was before. His hands on the trunks of the trees he passes are more for _comfort_ than necessity; his body automatically adjusts to keep his ankles from rolling, to catch his balance when he snags his toes on tree roots, and tangled reaching undergrowth. 

The river is fast, and flowing; the scent of it brisk and sharp and clean in Liam’s nose. He crouches down at the water’s edge when he reaches it, and then gives up and goes to his knees. Dampness immediately starts soaking into his jeans but he doesn’t _care_. He just leans over, and cups a handful of water between his palms, and _presses_ it over the skin of his face. He scrubs at his dripping cheeks after, trying to clear the drum-tight feeling there. He rubs at his eyes to wash away the crust that had formed during his outburst in the woods.

He gets a second handful of water, and uses it to wash out his sour-tasting mouth.

Once he’s swirled it around, and spat the water back out, he sits back on his heels. He feels _infinitely_ more—well. Not _human,_ because he isn’t—bitterness attempting to swell in his chest that Liam _immediately_ strangles, because he just _can’t,_ not right now—but more like himself. 

More like he can climb back onto his feet, and dry his face, and head back to the car so that he can apologize to Alec, and to Theo, for his behavior.

 _It’s over now,_ he tells himself firmly, trying to put the still-simmering—and liable to boil back over, if he’s not careful—mess of it all to bed. He’d made his offer. Alec had accepted it. There’s no going back, and of course Liam wouldn’t _want_ to go back; Alec is alive, and will remain that way. They’ll figure the rest out.

 _It’s over now,_ he repeats, but as he starts to climb to his feet he winds up leaned half over the water, so that he can see his reflection.

 _You’re the true alpha’s beta,_ Nejla had told him, the first time they’d met. _You’re the true alpha’s beta,_ he’d reminded _himself_ earlier today, desperately searching for the will to unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth, and say _something_ to help, rather than hurt. 

Liam sinks right back down onto his heels at the same time as he feels a sinking sensation in his chest _. It’s_ not _over,_ he realizes.

It’ll _never_ be over; not for him. He’s the true alpha’s beta, Scott’s _second_ — _the first beta of a Pack shall be known as the ‘second,’ and this second shall have the power_ —and before he’d left Beacon Hills on this trip—before he’d _fled_ it, before he’d _run away,_ because that’s exactly what he’d done, and he gets the feeling that _everyone,_ including himself, had known it—he’d been studying with Deaton and Scott to be able to fill-in as Council advisor. When he’d first suggested it to Scott—Scott chewing a thumbnail and wondering how he’d juggle vet school with his advisor duties—it’d just been a _favor,_ the kind that friends—that _pack_ —did for each other all time. 

_What an idiot you were,_ Liam thinks to himself. How _young_ he’d been; how _naive._

When he’d thought about advising the Council at _all_ —and he’d tried not to, he’d _really tried_ —he’d thought of it like advising the _pack;_ all of them huddled around the island in the McCall-Argent kitchen, or sprawled out over the Stilinski living room, or yelling at each other from all levels of Derek’s loft. He’d thought of their Doritos-dusted hands smearing radioactive orange color all over each other’s phones, and laptops, as they passed each of those things back and forth, half the ideas they came up with absolutely ludicrous and the other half only workable in the sense that they lived in _Beacon Hills,_ that they were _the McCall pack;_ insane plans that eventually worked themselves out in the end were kind of their _modus operandi._

But that’s not what being a Council advisor _means._ That’s not what being Scott’s second, _the true alpha’s beta,_ means.

 _This_ is what it means: exactly what Liam had just done. Desperately scrabbling at the edges of a system, and a society, that he barely understands, and has little to no influence over, in a frantic bid to keep people— _victims_ —like Alec alive. Making offers, and deals, that had the power to save or end lives, where Liam often wouldn’t know which one he’d succeeded in ensuring until it was too late to take it back, or try to correct his decisions.

The kind of deal that Scott had made, that day with the Council: _I take responsibility for him! For Theo Raeken!_

The kind of deal that _Theo_ —understanding dawning slow and _horrified_ in Liam’s mind—had been preparing to make with the Gauthiers.

Theo hadn’t been asking Gaven for _mercy,_ Liam realizes. He’d been _opening negotiations._ That glint in Gaven’s eyes as he’d looked back at Theo hadn’t been _inflexibility;_ it’d been _calculation._ He’d been preparing to extract every bit of value out of Theo—out of the McCall pack—that he could, in exchange for letting Alec go. 

And _Theo_ had been preparing to _let him,_ in exchange for getting to save Alec’s life.

There’s a hollow sensation in Liam’s stomach like he’d be sick again if he wasn’t already so numb with his revelation. _That’s what you’ll be expected to do,_ some sharp, insinuating voice in his mind sneers. Trade people’s lives like chips. Haggle over their futures like second-hand goods.

 _I think I’m going to be sick again,_ Liam thinks, very clearly, as the numbness fades to be replaced with the cramping of his guts, the rolling of his stomach. He ends up hunched over the water again.

 _You’re the true alpha’s beta,_ he thinks, and now he’ll never be able to _forget_ it, to the extent that he ever had been before. Now every time he looks at Alec, he’ll _remember._ He’ll _have_ to remember.

He won’t be able to hide behind his youth anymore. He’s lost the ability to be _naive_ about it all.

He’s going to have to look at Alec everyday for the rest of his life, and _remember_ what he’d lost. Just like—just like he’d been forced everyday to remember what he’d lost after Theo’s trial; that small, secret smile that Theo used to shoot him, full of speculation and _possibility,_ and that Liam had never seen again after that night that Quentin had forced his way into their lives, and his claws into Theo’s back.

He won’t be able to lie to himself anymore about what being Scott’s second— _the true alpha’s beta_ —means for him, just like he’d lost the ability to lie to himself about what it means when Theo looks at him, and looks away from him, and touches his tattoos, and his scent sours. 

_Three things cannot long be hidden,_ Liam thinks, his mantra— _Satomi’s_ mantra, _Brett’s_ mantra, _Lori’s_ mantra, all of them dead and gone and _destroyed_ by the very world that Liam has to keep living in—rising unbidden in his mind: _the sun, the moon—_

The truth.

Liam falls back onto his heels, and then onto his sit-bones, and he stares out at the fast-flowing water, though he’s barely seeing it. 

He stares out at it for a long time.

\--- 

He says all of these things to Theo, more or less, when Theo finally comes looking for him.

He says, “Oh, believe me, I _know._ I couldn’t even save _you,_ ” when Theo reminds him that he can’t save everybody.

He wheels away, because he’s lost control of whatever his face is doing—his expression going raw like Theo’s is raw, cracked-open like Theo’s is cracked-open—and he slams a hand into a signpost warning against illegal _whatever_ as he goes. It wobbles alarmingly but stays upright, thank _christ:_ Liam’s already broken enough today.

He doesn’t stop walking when Theo calls after him.

It’s _worse_ than a futile effort, he knows. At some point he’s going to have to turn around, and go back, and face Theo and everything that Liam had just spilled out between them. His insides, his _guts;_ the tangled poisonous mess that he hadn’t fully realized had been _growing_ inside his chest, strangling all his organs as it went. It’s the absolute last thing that Liam wants to do, but he’s three thousand miles away from home, in the middle of a forest, and, well.

Theo has the car keys.

Liam snorts, helpless and a little hysterical. It’s not funny except how it _is,_ and he nearly starts _really_ laughing, right there in the middle of nowhere. But if he starts he probably isn’t going to _stop,_ so he bites his tongue literally bloody—the pain of it enough of a shock to pop the bubbling hysteria between his ribs—to keep from doing so. 

_The sun, the moon, the truth,_ he mouths, reflexive as his tongue heals.

He looks up to find the sun in the sky, poised over the fast-flowing river and haloed by covering clouds. If the moon is visible somewhere he can’t see it, but he can _feel_ it; pulling at his blood and bones and muscles. 

He looks back down. He licks his tongue across the backs of his teeth to clear the last of the blood there, and he thinks: _the truth._

And he’d found that too, hadn’t he? He’d found it anthropomorphized in Alec, who’s back at the campsite with Theo, asleep last Liam sensed or not, terrified and formerly-starving and so grateful that he’d been handed off like a bad penny from the Gauthier clan to the McCall pack. _Thank you,_ Alec had said, over and over, just like Theo had said: _it’s not so bad,_ had said: _Scott and Argent saved my_ life _here._

Anger tries to rise in Liam’s chest again but there’s no _fuel_ left: the raging burn of it earlier had turned to ash everything in Liam’s chest that might have served. 

Now he’s just hollow. Now he’s just—

_It’s why you get angry when you’re afraid._

Liam stops walking. 

When Theo had said that he’d originally meant the _Anuk-ite,_ but it’d been true then and it hadn’t stopped being true since. 

_It’s why you get angry when you’re afraid._

And he’d been _terrified_ standing there in the Gauthiers’ drive with Chandler’s knife to Theo’s neck and Theo’s hand flung out to order _Liam, don’t!,_ like it’d been more important to Theo that Liam not cause _a diplomatic incident_ than for Theo to avoid _bleeding out_ all over Chandler’s—and Liam’s, he’d been standing close enough—shoes.

He’d been _terrified_ for the brief stretch of minutes that he and Theo had been alone in Gaven’s study, Liam thinking _they’re going to kill him, they’re going to kill him, they’re going to kill him,_ on an all-consuming loop as he’d remembered the drunken, drugged way that Alec had looked up at him and Theo from behind gold-flared eyes.

He’d been terrified he’d get the words wrong even as he’d goaded Chandler: _you want me to cite chapter and verse of the Law?_ There’d been a panicked, shrieking voice in his head that’d warned, _but what if you don’t,_ even as he’d been challenging Chandler: _you know I have the authority._

He’d been thinking: _I don’t want it._

He’d been thinking: _I shouldn’t have it._

He’d been thinking that it’d been _years_ since Theo’s trial, but he was still too young, and still too naive, and it didn’t _matter_ that he was the true alpha’s beta: he was still just _Liam,_ and he didn’t know what the hell he was doing.

It hadn’t mattered. He’d said it anyway. He’d made his _offer_ anyway, and Gaven, and Alec, and even Theo—standing there staring at Liam like he’d never seen him before—had accepted.

 _What have I done?_ He’d thought, the whole way out here, but now he thinks: _what am I going to do?_

 _Liam, stop,_ Derek had begged, when Liam had been fighting and raging and desperate to get back inside the Council’s courtroom; the place where Theo had hunched his shoulders in when he’d been sentenced to death, _resignation_ in the way he’d squeezed his eyes shut. _This isn’t a monster for you to beat,_ Derek had pleaded with him to understand.

 _This isn’t a fight you can win,_ he’d said.

And Liam had been so _stupid_ back then. After Scott had come back out of the Council’s courtroom, and grasped Liam by the shoulders, and promised him that Theo was coming home, he’d thought that Derek had been _wrong._ That they _had_ won the fight, in the face of all the odds. It hadn’t been until weeks later that he’d understood what Scott, and Argent, and _Theo_ had all so effortlessly and immediately grasped: that sometimes _winning_ didn’t get to mean what you thought it should. 

Theo looking at Liam, and looking away from him, and touching his tattoos, his scent souring with _fear._

 _He’s not afraid of you,_ Scott had tried telling Liam, after Liam had had that sickening, unwanted realization. _He’s afraid_ for _you,_ Quentin’s hand around Theo’s newly-tattooed arm and his voice low in Theo’s ear, promising Theo that he’d take any mistakes Theo might make, and ensure the pack paid for them, too. 

Liam hadn’t gotten it then but he sure as hell gets it now.

 _I’m sorry,_ he thinks, even though Theo isn’t around to hear him. Even though Theo isn’t around to hear him _because_ Liam had walked away from him, and left him to clean up Liam’s mess, just like he, and Scott, and Argent, and the rest of the pack have been cleaning up Liam’s messes for years. 

_I’m sorry,_ he thinks, because he’d thought Theo had _given up,_ had been a _coward,_ when really he just—hadn’t been young, like Liam. He hadn’t been naive, like Liam.

 _He’s not afraid_ of _you,_ Scott had said. _He’s afraid_ for _you._

 _Yeah,_ Liam thinks. _Me, too._

But whatever else is going on, however _fucked up_ everything else is— _it’s why you get angry when you’re afraid_ —Liam _still_ can’t stand the idea of Theo being afraid _because_ of him. 

He turns around. He heads back; he heads back to Theo.

\---

It’s dark by the time Liam makes it back to the campsite. Alec is gone, which mean Derek had already come and gone and taken Alec with him back to Beacon Hills. 

Theo’s already asleep.

And not just _asleep,_ but curled up in the trunk area of his car—the backseat folded down—in his full-shift form. He’s only taking up half of the available space. The other half is filled with the sleeping bag and mattress pad that he’d apparently laid out for _Liam._

Liam stands outside the car once he realizes, and _stares._

But it’s cold out in the woods, even with how swampy the weather is during the day, and more than that: Liam just doesn’t want to be _alone_ anymore. He gets his hands on the handle of the door into the backseat, and opens it.

Theo stirs _immediately,_ starting to rise up as he starts to whip his head around, clearly just-woken _alarmed_. 

“Hey,” Liam murmurs, gently catching his head and reflexively stroking his fingers across Theo’s furred cheeks as he does. “Hey, it’s okay. It’s just me.” He repeats that— _it’s just me_ —as he reaches back behind himself with one hand to snag the door and close it, and he keeps up his soothing chant as he starts to settle down against the sleeping bag. “It’s okay, it’s just me. It’s—”

 _Okay,_ he nearly says again, except it’s _not_ okay. Liam can still smell Alec’s scent in the car and he can still see where he’d put his claws through the console in front of the passenger seat, and he remembers, all at once: _I’m Scott’s second._

He remembers all but yelling at Theo: _this is the rest of my goddamn life._

The hand he still has on Theo’s head spasms. Theo starts to push _past_ Liam’s hold, trying to finish turning around. 

“No,” Liam gasps, unable to stop himself. He tightens the muscles of his arm to prevent Theo from doing so, and then keeps going and pushes his head _back_ around, away from him, at the same time he presses himself up close to Theo’s lupine back. “No, _please._ ”

Theo lets him, subsisting with a low, confused whine. Liam just buries his face in the back of Theo’s ruff, unable to help himself.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, Theo’s fur brushing over his lips with every word. Theo shivers, and Liam can’t help it; he drops one hand to Theo’s flank, and threads his fingers through the fur there. He _twists,_ just hard enough to feel the pull; to feel _anchored,_ like that one point of contact is the only thing keeping him together. “I’m sorry, I know nothing that happened today was your fault.”

Theo whines again, subvocal. Liam only catches it because he’s pressed up so close to Theo’s back, his hand tangled _hard_ in the fur of Theo’s side, that he literally feels it vibrate through his own body as it vibrates through Theo’s. Liam’s burning eyes spill over. He presses himself even _harder_ up against Theo’s back, or tries to; there’s nowhere closer for him to _get._

“I’m _sorry,_ ” he repeats, _meaning_ it. “You were just doing the best you could. I’m _sorry._ ”

Theo on the riverbank, trying to tell him: _this doesn’t have to be your life, not if you don’t want it to be._ Theo standing in Gaven’s study, prepared to let the Gauthiers and the Law extract even more from him no matter what he’d already been forced to give up to it.

Theo looking at Liam, and looking away from Liam, and touching his tattoos, his scent souring with fear.

“I’m _sorry,_ ” Liam tells him, and then he really starts to shake.

Theo squirms against him, clearly trying to turn around.

“ _No,_ ” Liam insists, tightening his grip on the fur of Theo’s side and bringing up a knee to pin Theo’s haunches down. 

Theo stills again, but it’s a false stillness. Liam can feel the way his muscles are so stiff that _Theo’s_ starting to tremble a bit; starting to tremble a bit with the effort of doing what Liam asked. It makes the burning in Liam’s eyes _worse._ It makes the shaking of his limbs _worse._

It makes it nearly impossible for Liam to confess: “I just keep thinking that you were going to on this trip _alone,_ originally,” his throat is so tight. He swallows, but that doesn’t help much. He swallows, but his voice still breaks when he points out, “And if you’d, if you'd been _alone_ when Chandler put that knife to your neck, and Gaven hadn’t shown up when he did…”

God, what would Liam have _done_ if the McCall pack had gotten that call? If Theo had died out on the Gauthier’s farm, no one there to tell his side of the story, the Gauthiers free to make up whatever lie they wanted? _A fatal mistake,_ they might have claimed. 

Or, more likely: _he’d always been dangerous,_ Gaven might have said, and then he might have gotten that calculating look in his eye as he looked at _Scott,_ and decided what he’d demand in exchange for not invoking the Law against Scott, and Argent. _If something happened, and Theo were forced to defend himself, it’d put Chris and I at risk, too,_ Scott had said, all those years ago while he’d been trying to explain to Liam: _he’s not afraid of you._

 _He’s afraid_ for _all of us._

“I’m _sorry,_ ” Liam repeats, can’t stop himself: sorry for not understanding before, sorry for only understanding _now,_ sorry that understanding doesn’t change anything. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

Theo starts trying to turn again, a little more insistently. The whine he’d apparently been swallowing back breaks loose of his throat, high-pitched and _distressed_ and _jamming_ itself into Liam’s ribcage like hooks and _yanking._

He clamps his arm and leg harder down around Theo. He begs, “No! No, _please._ ”

Theo flattens back down, but now _he’s_ shaking _. You did that,_ Liam reminds himself. _You’ve done all of this._

“And it’s not just that,” Liam tells him, all of his words now just _spilling_ out of him like a dam that’d given way. “Think about it,” he says, even though he knows—he _knows_ —that Theo is hanging on his every word, that Theo is thinking about whatever Liam is telling him. “We’ve been _late._ I fucked up your whole schedule when I came, because I kept—kept _whatever._ ” 

Because he kept _fucking up_ in general _,_ with Nina and Yael Leitner and with Theo himself, the broken-open look on Theo’s face when he’d been staring longingly after the stolen family he hadn’t meant to let Liam see. But even _beyond_ that:

“That’s the only reason you and I were there to see the Gauthiers bring in Alec. What if we hadn’t been there?”

But Liam knows. Just like _Theo_ apparently knows: he whimpers. If they hadn’t been there, then—

“They would have killed him,” Liam whispers, saying it aloud so that it’s no longer rooted in his chest, _poisoning_ him. “And we would never have— _no one_ would ever have known. He wouldn’t even have been a _statistic._ ”

 _You saved his life,_ Theo had told him. _Thank you,_ Alec had said, over and over again.

 _I don’t want it,_ Liam had thought, petulant and young and _naive,_ even as he’d been invoking his authority as Scott’s second to do exactly what he’d done. The contradiction _storms_ in his chest; a tempest caged between his ribs and ripping up his insides.

“What am I going to do, Theo?” Liam asks, and not just asks: he _begs. Please,_ he thinks, _tell me what to do._

But Theo can’t, because he’s lupine-shaped and because Liam won’t let him turn around; can’t let him turn around. He buries his face even harder against Theo’s back. He winds his fingers even _tighter_ in Theo’s fur. He presses his knee down even more forcefully against Theo’s haunches.

“I don’t know what to _do,_ ” he confesses, and it comes out on half a sob. “I don’t. I—”

He’s shaking too hard to keep Theo pinned, now, really; Theo could turn around if he wanted to.

But Theo doesn’t move, except to press further back _into_ Liam; he stays still under Liam’s no-longer pinning hand, and no-longer pinning knee, and he stays still while Liam shakes, and shakes, and shakes.

\--- 

Liam wakes up the next morning still wrapped around Theo’s lupine back.

He freezes—though his fingers tighten reflexively in the fur of Theo’s side—and doesn’t dare so much as _breathe_ as he tries to pull his sleep-sluggish thoughts together. The morning sunlight is streaming in through the windshield. His face feels parchment dry and crackling-uncomfortable, his cheeks salt-stained and stinging sharp. 

Theo is awake beneath his still-grasping hand, and his pinning knee. 

_Shit,_ Liam thinks, and rolls _immediately_ sideways. He’s reaching for the door handle and throwing himself out of the car even as the thought is completing itself. 

He stands with his back to the once-more closed door once he’s out, and just tries to slow his too-fast breathing; his rabbit-fast heartbeat. Inside—after a handful of seconds of delay—he can hear Theo shifting around, and then _shifting._ Liam keeps his eyes determinedly turned away even as he hears Theo drag over the pile of clothes he’d left folded in a corner of the trunk, and pull them on. 

He also doesn’t move away from the back door, so Theo has to exit out the opposite side. Liam flinches when he hears the handle click, and he presses back _harder_ against Theo’s car when he hears Theo quietly push the door he’d used back shut. His shoes crunch in the dirt and dried leaves as he comes around the side, and stops a few feet away from Liam.

“Liam—” he tries when he gets there, voice quiet and hesitant. If the look on his face matches his tone, Liam doesn’t notice; he refuses to look anywhere other than the nondescript tree he’d fixed his gaze on across the way.

“You think we could stop somewhere and pick up like, a breakfast sandwich and several gallons of coffee?” He interrupts, injecting his voice with as much false normality as he can. “I’m starving. And, you know, no offense to your collection of prepper foods…” He leaves the thought—the weak joke—hanging.

Theo doesn’t answer right away, and Liam can practically _hear_ him debating: push the issue, or not? It’s probably all in his head but Liam almost feels like he can _feel_ Theo’s eyes on his face, studying him. 

He must finally come to some kind of decision, because he agrees, “Sure.” Liam can hear him swallow. He imagines Theo forcing down every question—every _word—_ that he’d had lined up, that he’d wanted to ask, as he does. It’d explain why Theo has to clear his throat before he can add, “There was a rest stop a few miles back. We can go there,” anyway.

“Great,” Liam says, and he _still_ hasn’t looked over at Theo. He twists around so that he can open the passenger door and climb inside it. “Thanks.”

Theo drives them to the rest stop. He hasn’t even fully stopped the engine before Liam is unclicking his seatbelt, and opening his door. Liam half-expects Theo to call after him but Theo _doesn’t,_ and so Liam just starts cutting his way through the milling throngs of summer tourists, and doesn’t let himself listen to whatever Theo does, or doesn’t do, instead.

But once inside the rest stop he doesn’t head for the strip of restaurants serving clumps of patrons or even the bathrooms: he keeps heading straight for the opposite side of the building, and the exit _there,_ and he heads right back out into the open air. He spends a few seconds just standing in the middle of the sidewalk, the back of one wrist pressed to his mouth, and then he veers off and drops down onto a bench bordering the concrete. He covers his face with his hands.

He stays there for a while.

When he finally heads back inside the rest stop, he finds Theo sitting at a scuffed plastic table in one of the corners of the cafeteria area, two cups of coffee and a white bag purchased from one of the restaurants sitting in front of him. His expression is almost blank in its evenness, except for a muscle ticking at the edge of his jaw; he must be clenching his teeth. He uses the tips of his fingers to slide one of the coffees closer towards Liam when Liam drops down into the chair across from him.

“It might be lukewarm,” he warns quietly. “Sorry.”

And that’s _all_ he says about Liam’s absence, and so Liam just takes the coffee, and takes a deliberately long drink of it—the coffee not _quite_ lukewarm, but getting there—and shrugs. “It’s fine. Thanks,” he adds, belatedly.

Theo flicks a look up at him, then. Liam wonders, helpless and unbidden, what it cost him to sit here at this table with Liam’s coffee going colder and colder in front of him, and not get up and go find Liam. To not do anything other than, Liam’s sure, stretch out his hearing to make sure that Liam hadn’t, whatever. Taken off for the hills. Tried to hitchhike back to Beacon Hills with one of the truckers milling around the parking lot.

 _Sorry,_ Liam thinks, but doesn’t say. Add it to the pile: what _isn’t_ he sorry for, at this point?

Theo’s phone is on the table; he’d set it down when Liam had appeared. The screen had dimmed but Liam can still see the outlines of the map app open there, the thin blue line—with jarring sections of orange and radioactive red—marking their path. He bites his lip—is he really going to ask about _traffic?_ Is that what he and Theo have come to?

Apparently the answer is _yes._ Liam releases his lip, and asks, “How’s it look?”

It doesn’t take Theo long to realize what he means, his eyes tracking Liam’s down to his phone. His lips flicker, though the curve of it barely touches his eyes. “It’s traffic into Boston, so,” he answers, “shitty.”

 _He’s going to let me get away with it,_ Liam realizes, incredulous. The thought comforts for the split-second before it splinters, the shards of it stabbing their way through Liam’s chest, and guts, as he swallows. _Say something,_ Liam had nearly begged him yesterday: _say anything,_ but Theo hadn’t. And now _Liam_ doesn’t know what to say—what to do—and so _he_ looks at Theo, and then looks away from Theo. He doesn’t have any magical tattoos to touch so instead he reaches forward and snags the bag of food off the table as he stands, his chair legs _shrieking_ against the floor. 

“I guess we’d better get going, then,” he concludes, ignoring the way that he can feel color briefly flood his cheeks as several startled heads turn towards their table at the noise. He heads for the exit without waiting for Theo to agree, or disagree. 

He heads for the exit without waiting for Theo, at all.

Back in the car he keeps the windows up while he eats his breakfast sandwich specifically for the way the pungent scent of meat and cheese and egg will mask his scent. The second he finishes—the paper wrapper balled up in his hands, and shoved back in the bag between his feet—he stabs a finger down on the window controls, and lowers his all the way. Almost immediately the car fills with the scent of exhaust, and greenery from the trees bordering the highway, and underneath all that the faint scent of livestock, and farmland. 

In the driver’s seat, Theo hesitates for a second, and then lowers the rest of the windows, too. Liam closes his eyes—slowly at first and then _squeezing_ them almost painfully shut—and turns his face towards his now-open window. It fills _his_ nose even more completely with the overpowering scents streaming in on the fast-moving air, _scrubbing_ his lungs clean of anything else.

Of _Theo’s_ scent, whatever it may contain.

They don’t talk.

Not when they leave the rest stop, and not for the first two hours, or the second, or the third. There are points where he thinks Theo is going to _try_ —Theo sucking in these deep, bracing breaths—but every time Liam can feel his shoulders hunching defensively up without his say-so, and every time Theo glances over at him, and then turns back to the road, and he sighs out all the air he’d taken into his lungs without ever turning any of it into speech. 

The last time that he looks at Liam, and looks away from Liam, he then props up his left elbow on his door, and braces his head against his hand. While he doesn’t _directly_ touch his tattoos, he does turn his face very briefly against his marked-up forearm, and it’s—good enough for jazz. Liam closes his eyes, and deliberately takes in an exhaust-laden breath so he can’t tell what happens to Theo’s scent when he does it.

Finally they reach Boston. It’s as much if not more a congestion-laden nightmare than the outlying highways had been, and Liam suddenly can’t take it anymore. If he has to sit here in the suffocating silence that’d fallen between him and Theo any longer—the suffocating silence _he’d created,_ that he’d _assured,_ Theo closing his mouth every time he’d gone to open it because Liam had bodily flinched—he’s going to lose it.

“Hey,” he croaks, his voice rough from disuse and everything he’s been swallowing down since he woke up this morning still wrapped around Theo’s lupine back. “You mind dropping me off at Lydia’s and Stiles’ and Derek’s place? I’m wiped,” he says, casting around for an excuse even though he _knows_ Theo wouldn’t have pushed him regardless. “Could use an opportunity to sleep in a bed that several hundred other random strangers _haven’t_ slept in.”

Theo’s fingers tighten minutely on the steering wheel. _Say something,_ Liam finds himself silently begging again, but Theo doesn’t. Instead his fingers relax the next second, and he drops a hand to flick on his turn signal, to turn his head around on his neck to check his blindspot as he changes lanes. He jokes, “I’m not sure that’s much of a trade. I wouldn’t consider any of the flat surfaces in their house as _untouched,_ considering,” though his voice is a little strained.

In literally any other circumstances Liam would _never_ pass up the opportunity to get the dig in at Stiles, in absentia or no. Today he just shrugs, and murmurs, “Yeah, well.” 

He keeps his eyes turned towards the city streaming by out his window. 

There’s no space for Theo to slot into as he drops Liam off, so instead he turns on his hazards like a native Bostonian and just blocks the whole street, cars parked on either side and no room for anyone coming the opposite way to squeeze past him. Liam hops down out of the car with a gruff thanks and hurries his way to the front door of Lydia’s and Stiles’ and Derek’s house, aware the whole time—even though he doesn’t actually look to check—of Theo’s eyes following his progress. _Is this what the rest of our lives are going to be like?_ Liam wonders. 

Just him and Theo, never looking at each other except when they’re sure the other is looking away. 

He’s distracted enough that the first code he punches into the electronic front door lock is wrong. Out on the street the sound of Theo’s car idling as he waits rumbles like an _accusation,_ and Liam squeezes his eyes shut and viciously berates himself to _c’mon, c’mon._ He wracks his brain, and then—thank god—remembers. The lock beeps obligingly on his second try.

He shoves through the door, and pushes it too-hard back shut behind himself before he can glance over his shoulder, and risk catching a glimpse of what expression Theo is wearing. For a few moments he stays there, leaned back against the wood of the door and with his ears stretched out towards the street. Theo idles for a half-minute or so longer— _maybe he’s checking traffic to MIT,_ Liam thinks, though he knows that’s probably bullshit—and then the sound of his engine slowly fades away into the distance as Theo leaves.

Liam breathes out a long, shaky breath, and pushes off of the door.

But he realizes his mistake almost _instantly_ : the house reeks of _pack._

Of _course_ it does, and in a way it comforts as much as it hurts; the smell of it settling into Liam’s bones like ballast, weighing him down and grounding him to the earth in a way he hasn’t felt in—days, probably. Maybe since he’d originally crashed Theo’s trip. But past that initial rush of relief comes a flood of everything else that he’d managed to shove down, and ignore, during the ride in: _I’m Scott’s second, Hunter Gauthier; you’re the true alpha’s beta._

_This is the rest of my goddamn life._

Liam about-faces, about to head _right back out_ the door. But just a few steps later he stops. What was he going to do, just go wander around Boston like some kind of B-grade indie film protagonist? He’s had enough of his own shit for a _lifetime_ — _this is the rest of my goddamn life_ —and he suddenly can’t stand the idea of being alone with himself any longer. 

There’s a paper calendar hanging on the wall just off the kitchen, featuring—hunky New York firefighters. That is most _definitely_ some kind of joke that Liam is not in on, so he just blinks away his momentary surprise and focuses in on the part that’d actually caught his attention. _Dinner w/Kollmann’s,_ Lydia had written on a Saturday some past weekend. 

Liam makes the decision right then and there. He pulls out his phone, and is requesting the rideshare, almost before he’s finished reading the note.

\---

The Kollmanns are gratifyingly happy to see him, considering he shows up on their doorstep like a Dickensian orphan with no warning. 

“Liam!” Aimee crows as she yanks open the front door. “We were wondering if we were going to see you.” She looks expectantly behind him, and then frowns slightly. “Where’s Theo? I thought you two were a package deal for this trip.”

Something clenches in Liam’s chest at that _package deal._ “He’s off being, you know. Irritatingly responsible and things. I think he’s still with Lydia at MIT.”

That explanation seems to satisfy Aimee. She steps back to let him in at the same time that she starts pumping him—benignly—for all the juiciest McCall-pack-and-Northern-California gossip. Liam answers best he can and dodges what he can’t, and is eventually released into the wilds of the Kollmann’s house when they reach the living room.

Almost immediately overlapping cries of, “Dunbar!,” and “Oh, hey, Liam,” and, “You still owe me twenty bucks, you little prick!”—the last of these from Andrew, who Liam flips off without comment—break out. Liam spends a few moments idly chatting with the gathered group, but then is directed downstairs. “That’s where the homebound horde has set up,” Aimee confides, rolling her eyes. The Kollmanns had several college-age members.

Liam grins, and thanks her, and heads for the basement.

Eliza’s the first to notice him. “Hey, stranger,” she calls as he jogs the last few steps down. She waves him over primarily by dint of waving the controller in her hand around. “You want in?” 

Liam looks at the TV, and the four-way split-screen showing the competition currently underway between Eliza, Sam, Kris, and Geordie. The latter three are taking _ruthless_ advantage of Eliza’s distraction—Geordie runs her right off the Rainbow Road.

“Sure,” Liam agrees, vaulting the back of the couch to take up the last bit of free space between TJ and Layla, who aren’t even paying attention to the screen, but are bent over TJ’s phone. TJ makes a scalded-cat noise of annoyance as he’s jostled but doesn’t even look up. Eliza hands over her controller without complaint. 

It helps: the meaningless, good-natured chaos as Liam and the others playing the game taunt and jeer and yelp; the squished-in, carefree _pile_ of everyone, not Liam’s pack but _a_ pack, and a tight-knit one at that.

The chance to just be a languid, lazy college student again, even if just for a few hours, rather than—anything else. The true alpha’s beta. Scott’s second. Liam focuses on the game, doesn’t even have to _try_ that hard to lose himself in it, and the way that he ignores _every_ bit of terrible advice Eliza keeps shrieking in his ear, and forgets about the rest.

But eventually he’s forced back upstairs because Kris just will _not_ get out of the downstairs bathroom, to everyone’s vocal disgust, and Liam’s drank like, half a gallon of soda. It’s as he’s washing his hands in the relative quiet of the main floor’s guest bathroom—the noise from the basement, and even the noise from the living room, carefully muted by the house’s deliberately supernaturally-friendly design, extra soundproofing in the walls—that reality starts to filter back in. Liam’s hands slow around the towel he’d been using to dry them, and he winds up tipping his head up to study his reflection in the mirror.

 _Keep running away like this, and eventually you’re going to run out of places to run away to,_ he thinks to himself, and then grimaces. He drops the hand towel back onto its hook and then smacks a hand against the light switch as he exits the bathroom.

And nearly runs directly into Graham. “Jesus!” He gasps, half bent over with his hands on his knees as he fights to recover his breath. 

Graham looks _supremely_ unimpressed when Liam glances up at him. “Beta Dunbar,” he greets, neutral.

“Alpha Kollmann,” Liam parrots back, more than a little nasally; mocking.

Graham’s serious expression cracks, and he darts out an arm to catch Liam by the neck and reel him into a headlock as he digs his knuckles into the top of Liam’s head. “Liam!” He crows, ignoring Liam’s squawks of displeasure and struggles as he tries to free himself. He makes a point of only letting Liam go when he’s seemingly satisfied, and then he glances curiously around. “Where’s your boyfriend?”

“Not my boyfriend,” Liam replies, rote. He makes a face. The denial is reflexive—he and Graham have this exchange literally every time they see each other—but the bitterness that twists through Liam’s chest as he thinks of Theo—wherever he might be, whatever he might be doing—is less so.

From the subtle flare of Graham’s nostrils, he catches it.

And has zero compunctions about dragging it out into the light. “What’s wrong with you?” He demands.

“ _Nothing,_ ” Liam denies, immediately and obviously defensive. Graham’s eyebrows shoot up.

“Want to try that again?” He offers dryly.

Liam just scowls.

“No, seriously,” Graham insists. “Try that again, because you reeking like an orphaned puppy left out in the rain makes _no sense,_ considering what you pulled off yesterday.”

Liam feels his expression blank with surprise. “You know about that?”

Graham rolls his eyes. “Packs gossip like teenagers, Dunbar. You know this.” He fixes his gaze back on Liam. He apparently gets frustrated when Liam doesn’t say anything, and presses, “ _So?_ ”

“ _So,_ ” Liam drawls back, mulish, “what, exactly?”

“ _So,_ ” Graham answers for him, “you saved someone’s life yesterday.”

Liam can’t keep looking at him. He turns his head away as he shrugs, rough and jerky. “Yeah, technically, I guess.”

Graham makes a disbelieving noise. “Nothing _technical_ about it, the way I hear.”

Liam doesn’t know what he’s waiting for Liam to say. He widens his eyes and shrugs again. Graham spends a few more seconds studying him, and then he starts nodding, slowly at first until suddenly he stops.

He starts walking forward, towards Liam, and he snags the back of Liam’s collar as he goes. “Alright, that’s it. Come with me,” he orders, like Liam in fact has a _choice_ in the matter; he goes—scuttling backwards some like a crab given the way that Graham’s grip is causing his collar to dig into his neck—as Graham hauls him down the hallway.

“Hey!” Liam complains, when Graham finally deigns to release him. He rubs a little at his throat as he looks around, realizing that Graham had dragged him into his study. He frowns, confused.

Graham just snaps a finger at the chair behind the big, solid wooden desk, and raises his eyebrows expectantly when Liam doesn’t move. Liam has the _instant,_ overwhelming teenage urge to plant his feet and stay exactly where he is, but then he—goes.

“What,” he snarks, once he’s dropped petulantly down into the chair. 

Graham just spends a few seconds digging around the piles of paperwork and a closed laptop teetering alarmingly on the edge of the desk—Liam ends up leaning forward and moving it out of paranoia—and several uneven stacks of books. He finds what he’s looking for in one of the latter, and tugs a hard-backed, maybe inch-thick book free. 

He drops it on the desk in front of Liam with a deliberate thump.

“You follow the Council’s cases at all?” He asks.

Liam works his jaw. “No,” he’s forced to admit. Graham’s lips flicker, amused.

“But you know how they tend to go, I bet. From your time researching for your boyfriend’s defense, if nothing else,” he presses.

“He’s not—” Liam gives up, and just glares. “Is there a point to all this?”

Graham ignores him. “From what you know of Council cases, how often do supernatural defendants usually lose?”

Liam feels his jaw snap shut. He has to grit out, “Most of the time,” from between clenched teeth.

“What about hunters who get a little too _enthusiastic_ about enforcing the Code? How often do they end up with more than a slap on the wrist?” Graham wonders, dropping down into one of the chairs in front of the desk as he does.

“Almost never,” Liam grinds out, _bitterness_ saturating his words; god, but it’d been _eye-opening_ to realize how much of an outlier the outcomes of Monroe’s and her cronies’ trials had been. In his worst moments Liam had been surprised the Council hadn’t awarded her a goddamn _medal._

“Yeah,” Graham agrees. Except he’s still _smirking._ Liam feels his eyes narrow. “Open that,” Graham orders, jerking his chin at the book he’d dropped in front of Liam. “Tell me how the first case ended.”

Liam frowns, curiosity piqued in spite of himself. He slowly reaches forward for the book and drags it towards himself, only then realizing that it’s a bound copy— _a reporter,_ Mason had tried telling him one time, _places where legal opinions are kept are called reporters_ —of the opinions issued by the Council during their latest term. 

He hesitates for a second, and then flips open the cover.

It takes him a few seconds to flip through the first couple of pages to find the first case, and skim through the opinion. When he does, he feels _disappointment_ sear through him.

“The supernatural defendant _lost,_ ” he tells Graham, flicking his eyes up to look almost accusatorially at him.

“Yeah,” Graham agrees. “They did.” He tips his chin at the book again. “Next case.”

Liam stares at him for a few seconds, but then looks back down. He finds the start of the next case, and starts skimming through it. 

He feels his expression slacken with surprise when he reaches the end. “Oh,” he breathes. “They ruled in favor of the supernatural.”

He jerks to look up at Graham. Graham looks back.

He orders, “Next case.”

Liam skims through the next to find that the Council had ruled in favor of the supernatural defendant _there,_ too. The next handful of cases after that the supernatural defendants had lost, but the next _three_ cases after _those,_ the supernatural defendants had either _won_ outright, or had their sentences greatly reduced. One that _absolutely_ should have been executed under existing—Liam casts around for the word, trying to recall the terms Mason had used during the times he’d gotten caught up, and started chattering on about the law, and the _Law._ He remembers: precedent. 

Under existing Council precedent, the supernatural should have been executed. Instead they’d been placed on the hunter version of parole; the one with the weird magical tracking bracelets.

Liam sits back, and stares at Graham. At some point he’d forgotten to keep reporting the outcomes of the cases, but Graham hadn’t bothered reminding. him. There’s something searching, and quiet, and _steady_ in Graham’s gaze as he looks back.

“One more,” he says quietly. “ _Council v. Thurow._ Check the table of contents.”

Liam jerks at the name. _Thurow._ There’d been a Thurow hunter at the animal clinic that night that Quentin had attacked Theo, when everyone—everyone but _Liam,_ and _Theo,_ and even _Scott_ —had seemingly gotten a say in what to do about it. He remembers learning later: _the Thurows are a powerful hunting clan up North,_ Argent had explained. _Very old, very influential._

Liam flips hurriedly to the table of contents, and then hurriedly to the page specified. Graham gets up from his seat in the chair in front of the desk, and comes around to hover over Liam’s shoulder as Liam does.

Liam ignores him, too focused on skimming through the case’s opinion. _The Lakeview pack alleges that Vincent Thurow used excessive force in the pursuit and capture of an omega who’d been found in the Lakeview pack territory. Two members of the Lakeview pack were injured in trying to defend the omega. A third lost their life._

Liam keeps reading, _desperation_ driving him on. _C’mon,_ he finds himself praying, even if he doesn’t know what he’s praying _for._ _C’mon._

He finds it: _The Council finds that Thurow failed to follow Sections 8.3, 10.9, and several other related provisions of the Code in attempting to capture the omega. Further, the Council finds that Thurow did not have the requisite authority to conduct the hunt in the first place, given that his proof that the omega had broken the Law rested on, at best, highly circumstantial evidence. As such, the Council sentences Vincent Thurow to…_

Liam doesn’t bother reading further. This time when he sits back it’s hard enough that his back and shoulders _twinge_ as they hit the wood of the chair. He twists his head to stare up at Graham, stunned.

“Scott’s been a Council advisor for, what—two years? A little less than?” Graham says, voice soft now; quiet. He jerks his chin at the book still open in front of Liam. “Whatever he’s doing? It’s _working._ ” His expression spasms slightly, uncharacteristically serious. “Progress is _slow,_ sure, but as someone who’s had a front seat to the alternative for longer than I care to remember—it’s working.”

He looks steadily down at Liam.

“And yesterday, _you,_ ” he adds, his voice taking on a harder edge as he leans further over Liam, one hand braced on the desk and one hand braced on the back of Liam’s chair, “walked into the home of one of the most conservative hunter clans on this _planet,_ and walked out with an omega that they’d been determined to execute. And you did that without having to give _shit_ in return.”

He shakes his head incredulously.

“And you’re going to come in here and bitch about getting to be a part of that?” Liam _flinches._ “About getting to ride Scott’s coattails while he changes all of us for the _better_?” 

Graham shakes his head again, more vigorously this time. He reaches down, and wraps one arm around Liam’s neck in another headlock as he hauls him partially up, and out of the chair. 

He shakes him a little. “Nuh uh, no way.” He bends Liam a little further over, his knuckles once more digging into the top of Liam’s head as Liam reflexively squawks and complains. “Get the fuck outta here,” he just says over the top of Liam’s protests, his Bostonian drawl coming on _strong_. “Go back to your boyfriend, he clearly has more sense than you.”

He shoves Liam—relatively—gently sideways, towards the door. Liam stumbles a few feet away and then stops, his mind—his _chest_ —too much of a whirling mess to make sense of.

All he manages is, “He’s not my boyfriend,” because that’s more reflex than anything else.

Graham just rolls his eyes, and comes forward to shove Liam another few steps towards the doorway. “Maybe he should be,” he counters. “Maybe that’s something else you should get to work on changing.”

 _Possibility_ frissons like static electricity down Liam’s spine. _Something else he should get to work on changing._ The very _idea_ of it has him stumbling again.

Graham doesn’t let him stop, just keeps pushing him insistently out of the study, and then down the hallway. “No, seriously,” he insists. “Get the fuck out of here. I can’t stand the sight of you. Hey, give me that,” he says, switching targets and grabbing a six-pack of no-doubt aconite laced beer from Maddy walking by with it; Maddy bitches but then rolls her eyes and about-faces for the kitchen to, in all likelihood, go get more. “Take this with you,” Graham orders Liam. “Drink it and see if it makes you less of a moron on the other side.”

“Is this how you mentor all your betas?” Liam wonders as he accepts the beer with an _oof,_ Graham jamming it not-all-that-lightly against his chest. 

“My betas would never _dare_ show their kicked-puppy faces here with this silly a set of problems,” Graham insists severely; Liam _cackles,_ a little-lightheaded because: _maybe that’s something else you should get to work on changing._

They’re almost to the front door. Graham keeps driving him forward, and it’s only as Liam is tripping and nearly _faceplanting_ into the wood that he remembers:

“Wait! I don’t. I didn’t _drive,_ how am I supposed to—”

Graham frowns. “How the hell did you _get here_ —wait, nevermind. I don’t care.” He turns over his shoulder to hollers: “Andrew! Get over here!” Andrew pops his head sideways into the hallway. “Congratulations,” Graham tells him. “You get to drive Dunbar back to the Martin-Stilinski-Hale place. I’m sure you’re thrilled.”

Andrew gives an exaggerated groan, and goes to retrieve a set of car keys. Graham turns back to Liam.

“Graham—” Liam starts, unsure what he’d been about to say but desperate to say _something._ Whatever’s happening in his chest—the polar and exact _opposite_ of whatever had been happening in it this morning—is threatening to bubble up out of his throat.

Graham’s expression softens. He puts both hands on Liam’s shoulders, and looks him straight in the eye. “I know,” he tells Liam. “I _know,_ I do,” he promises. “But you can do this. You’ve _already_ done it,” he reminds Liam.

He means Alec, Liam realizes. Liam feels his expression start to crumple up. Graham squeezes his shoulders.

“And,” he adds, ducking a little to catch Liam’s eyes, Liam’s having dropped reflexively away, “you don’t have to do it alone.” He grins. He says, voice soft, “Go find your boyfriend.”

“He’s not—” Liam starts to say, and then he clamps his jaw shut. He stares up at Graham. 

“Brave new world, isn’t it?” Graham says, and cups one hand briefly around his cheek. 

Then he drops his hand, and turns to bellow:

“ _Jesus,_ Andrew! I sent you to find a set of _car keys,_ not the lost city of Atlantis!”

\---

Liam really _looks,_ but he can’t see Theo’s car anywhere along the street in front of Lydia’s and Stiles’ and Derek’s place while Andrew’s pulling up to the house. That’s not necessarily _fatal_ to Theo being there: Liam’s been here times when the street parking was so bad, they’d had to park like three blocks over and _walk._ Liam clutches his gifted six-pack to his chest, and breathlessly thanks Andrew for the ride, and gets out of the car. 

He has to spend a few impatient seconds waiting for not only Andrew to drive away, but for the cars backed up _behind_ Andrew to drive away, before he can cross the street. He stretches out his senses while he waits, searching for Theo’s heartbeat on each of the floors of the house and—not finding it. 

But there’s construction _everywhere_ —not to mention the roar of some asshole’s unmuffled douchemobile speeding by—and it’s possible Liam’s just not hearing it underneath all the competing noise. He bounces a little on his heels, and finally catches a break in the oncoming cars to dart through, and across the street.

He remembers the code on the first try, this time, but it doesn’t matter: he’d been right, and Theo isn’t in the house. He stands just inside the doorway, six-pack cradled against his chest, and bites his lip. 

_He_ was _here,_ he thinks to himself; he can smell it. After another moment of hesitation, Liam finally closes the door behind himself and then starts padding forward—his shoes heeled off and kicked onto the mat, because the second he’d taken a step further inside still wearing them he could hear Lydia’s irritated comment—towards the kitchen, following Theo’s scent trail.

But it stops at the island, and then apparently doubles back on itself; back to the front door. Liam frowns. _Maybe he went back to MIT,_ he ventures, but that wouldn’t make any _sense._ Why go to MIT, only to come back to the house, only to go back to MIT _again?_ Theo wouldn’t have needed anything from the house—his bag still in the trunk of his car—and it was just long enough of a drive through constantly-snarled traffic for it to be a significant annoyance. 

_He left,_ Liam realizes, and it’s like someone jammed a needle full of _ice-water_ directly into the top of his spine, and pressed the plunger; that old fear rising.

But he stops, and forces himself to breathe past that initial cold surge. Theo may have left, but he wouldn’t have _left_ —not without some kind of explanation. 

They’re not eighteen and fresh from the Wild Hunt anymore.

He sets his armful of aconite-laced beer down on the counter with the delicate _clink_ of glass bottles tapping against each other, and then feels his brow furrow as he looks down and spots his own note—the one he’d scrawled earlier in a moment of clarity before he’d fled to the Kollmanns’, since he hadn’t been able to _bear_ the thought of pulling out his phone, and _texting_ Theo—half-buried underneath the cardboard carrier. He slides it free using the tips of his fingers.

_Took a Lyft to go see the Kollmanns. Back Later. — L_

Liam had left the note in the middle of the counter when he’d headed out. It’d been sitting on the _edge_ of the counter: someone had moved it.

 _Theo_ had moved it, and then he’d apparently turned right around—almost an _exact_ match to what _Liam_ had done earlier—and left the house again. Something clenches up tight in Liam’s chest, strangling some of the bubbly, giddy feeling that had taken up residence there as Graham had been pointedly kicking him out of the Kollmann’s house. Liam touches his tongue to his bottom lip, and considers.

 _He’ll be back,_ he tells himself. 

He takes one of the bottles of beer from the six-pack, and goes to root out a bottle opener from Lydia’s and Stiles’ and Derek’s kitchen drawers.

At first he tries waiting in the house, curled over his phone at the kitchen table and trying to distract himself with—whatever. Social media, funny videos; brief, immediately abandoned forays into Wikipedia to try and look up other legal terms that’d started banging around his head more and more after his speed-reading of Council cases. He’d have to ask Mason, and actually bother _listening_ to his responses this time. He grins as imagines the flabbergasted look Mason will no doubt get when Liam does.

The problem is that he finds himself constantly distracted. Every car going by on the street might be Theo’s; every set of footsteps that traipse by out on the sidewalk might be him heading up to the house. After the fourth or fifth time that Liam finds his head jerking reflexively upwards to stare towards the front door, senses _automatically_ sharpening, he gives up, and gathers up his half-drunk beer and the rest of the six-pack, and goes to wait out on the steps.

Theo doesn’t end up getting back until it’s almost dark. 

Liam nearly spills his second beer—his first long since finished, and dropped back into the container at his hip—as he really _does_ hear Theo’s engine, finally, and his eyes immediately dart up to seek out Theo’s car as Theo manages to, miraculously, find a spot of street parking almost directly in front of Lydia’s and Stiles’ and Derek’s house. _I’m taking that as a sign,_ Liam decides, but he still can’t help rolling his current bottle of beer nervously between his palms.

He manages to catch Theo’s eyes for exactly half a second through Theo’s windshield, and then Theo looks away as he finishes parking. Something sharp tangles itself up in Liam’s guts. He twists sideways to set aside his own beer, and pull out a second, mostly just for something to do with his hands, and body, that isn’t staring fixedly at Theo as he walks up. 

His fingers aren’t entirely steady as he uncaps it.

Regardless, he offers, “Hey,” at the same time that he offers out the bottle; an olive branch and an olive branch. Theo doesn’t respond but he does take the bottle, and then twists gracefully sideways so that he’s sitting on the step below Liam. He takes a drink and then looks down at it, and then up at Liam, questioningly.

“The Kollmanns’,” Liam tells him, then: “They seemed to think I needed it,” because he feels the desperate need to give Theo _something,_ anything; as much as he can to make up for everything he didn’t give him this morning.

That he _hasn’t_ given him—the benefit of the doubt, the opportunity to explain, an attempt to understand what he was going through—for _years._ _I’m sorry,_ he thinks, and he means it in a different way than he’d meant it last night, but not any _less._

Theo just huffs a laugh, and Liam feels something like _pride_ —like _relief_ —go bolting through him. He starts casting around for other things he can say, other jokes—at his own expense or not—he can make, wanting another of those laughs; wanting another hit of that feeling.

Theo gives him an opening. “Where’s Lydia?” He wonders; clearly he’d realized that she isn’t home.

“Went to dinner at a friend’s,” Liam answers, and then he makes sure to ladle the insinuation on _thick_ as he adds: “I think she’s giving us _space._ ” 

Theo _barks_ a laugh, loud and almost startled-sounding, like it’d caught him by surprise. Liam _grins,_ the corners of his lips pulling so wide it’s almost painful, and that’s _before_ Theo agrees, “Well, she is the genius of the pack.”

When Theo settles a little more firmly back down against the steps, his whole posture is more relaxed. The next pull that he takes of his beer is _long,_ his head tilted back to expose the curve of his throat; Liam can’t help staring a little at it as Theo swallows. He orders himself to look away before Theo can notice, but then the issue becomes moot: Theo closes his eyes, and tilts his head back, and just _breathes._

Liam finds himself automatically adjusting the rhythm of his own lungs to match; in when Theo inhales, low and slow, and out when Theo exhales, just as easy. _Maybe that’s something else you should get to work on changing,_ Graham had said _._ Nervousness flutters in Liam’s gut again, and in trying to steady himself Liam ends up taking in an extra large mouthful of air, and then he frowns.

“You smell like trees and river mud,” he tells Theo, when Theo blinks open his eyes and looks curiously up at him.

Theo shrugs, unbothered. “Well, I spent a lot of time today surrounded by trees and river mud, so.” Liam feels his brow furrow and Theo must see it, too, because he clarifies: “Harold Parker State Forest.”

Liam feels his expression spasm. It’s possible Theo went to the State Park to pick a trail, and calmly hike it like he and Liam had earlier in their trip, but Liam _knows_ that’s not actually what happened. 

If Theo ran away to the woods, then he _ran_ away to the woods, and ran through them, deep enough that he doesn’t smell like other hikers, but like—now that Liam’s thinking to look for it—his full-shift form. _You did that,_ Liam thinks to himself in a depressing echo of last night, and he has to look away.

“Great,” he bites out, _shame_ curdling in his chest and rising up his throat in a noxious column. “So I drove you to run away to the middle of the woods. Fucking _fantastic._ ”

He closes his eyes. _God,_ he’d thought he’d been done being young, and naive, but what the hell had he been expecting. _Maybe that’s another thing you should get to work on changing,_ but Theo gets a vote, too, and after the last twenty-four hours Liam’s not sure what he’d think of himself, either. 

“Theo, I’m—” he starts to say, but he doesn’t get a chance to finish.

“ _Don’t,_ ” Theo orders. “Just do _not,_ ” he continues, when Liam jerks in surprise and looks over at him, “apologize to me. I cannot _handle_ you apologizing to me again.”

Liam probably looks exactly like the gape-mouthed fish they sell down at the piers, and which Lydia sometimes drags people to when she wants fresh, authentic _whatever._ He snaps his jaw shut after a second, and says, “Ooookay,” mostly to buy himself time as he tries to figure out what to do with this new information.

But he sure as hell can’t figure it out when Theo is _looking_ at him like he is, so Liam turns away. He takes a long drink of his beer to give himself something to do, but he’d forgotten about the label he’d spent the intervening minutes nervously shredding: the strips of it fall down into his face and he grimaces. Bringing the bottle back down, he rips them free, and shoves them into the container to be dealt with later, and then he—can’t stop himself. He whirls around to focus once more on Theo.

“Okay, no,” he counters. “This isn’t going to work. You’re going to have to let me buy a vowel or phone a friend or something, because I _really_ don’t think you and I can be emotional wrecks at the same time.” Liam stops to consider the true horrors of this, and adds: “The _universe_ might implode, or something equally—”

He freezes.

He freezes because Theo had leaned up, and pressed his mouth to Liam’s own. _We died at the Gauthiers,_ Liam immediately concludes. _The last forty-eight hours have been some kind of really strange pre-death fever dream._

He shudders, and melts down into the kiss. Fever dream or not, he’d take it.

Except—except he and Theo had gotten themselves tangled up in all kinds of knots, both separately and together, by refusing to open their mouths and just _talk._ As much as Liam is enjoying opening his mouth for _this_ particular exercise instead—and he _does_ open his mouth, his tongue briefly stroking out to meet Theo’s own as he brings his free hand up to cradle Theo’s face—he knows that they—need to talk about this.

Of course, he opens these negotiations by poking Theo in the face, but: whatever. 

“Hey,” he insists, when Theo just squints his eyes more tightly shut, and doesn’t acknowledge his prodding. Theo reluctantly opens his eyes after a few more determined pokes. Liam searches them. “Did you hit your head out there in the woods?” He demands to know.

Theo recoils, looking poleaxed. “What?”

Liam doesn’t let him get far. He slides his fingers back so that he’s more forcefully gripping the curve of Theo’s jaw, and hurries to tell him, “I’m not _complaining,_ ” and christ, he’s really _not,_ but. But. “I’m just—”

He trails off. He keeps searching Theo’s face, like the slight wrinkles at the corners of his eyes or the dip between the two halves of his upper lip or the strong curve of his jaw might contain all the answers Liam is looking for. And hell, they kind of _do:_ Theo’s expression spasms, but he—doesn’t look away from Liam.

He _doesn’t look away from Liam._

“No head injury,” he eventually answers, and his voice _croaks._

Liam finds himself oddly relieved—something wound tight in his chest starting to unwind itself the other way—at the evidence that Theo seems to be as lost as he is. Theo swallows, and Liam’s eyes drop to follow the bob of his throat, and for the first time in _years_ he thinks, _I want to put my mouth there,_ and doesn’t immediately smother the thought. 

But he’s pulled back to the conversation at hand when Theo explains, “But I had—an unexpected heart-to-heart with Lydia,” Liam feels a rush of sympathy; _that_ must have been painful. And then he very nearly laughs when Theo gives voice to Liam’s almost exact words: “so, you know—essentially the same thing.”

He closes his eyes, and Liam almost demands he open them— _don’t look away from me again;_ Liam doesn’t _ever_ want Theo to look away from him again—but then he forces himself to stop, and wait. 

To be patient, rather than impulsive. To be whatever the opposite of young—of _naive_ —is.

“She said—” Theo tries, then: “She _said—_ ” 

And he can’t seem to get it out, and Liam doesn’t want to _force him,_ even if he’s in fact desperate to know what Lydia said, but when he tries to say something to that effect, Theo just ends up talking over him, and all in a rush. 

“I don’t want to be stuck at my trial anymore, Liam,” he says, and Liam _stares._ Theo pulls back a little further, like his confession is taking up too much space between them and he needs to make more room, and then his expression scrunches up as he says, “I want to leave that room in Shorheh’s house—”

Liam jerks, remembering his own barbed accusation, him and Theo arguing in the car and Liam trying to get him to understand that he wasn’t _seventeen_ anymore, that none of them were seventeen anymore, and if Theo couldn’t understand that then _why did you even bother walking out of that room in Shohreh’s house?_

But he doesn’t get the chance to linger on the sharp twist of _guilt_ that constricts his throat; Theo surges up and kisses him again. Liam jolts and goes to respond, but Theo’s already pulled back.

“I want to _live,_ Liam,” he says, and his voice _cracks,_ right down the middle. “I want—to let myself live. I want to let myself want the things that I want. I want to let myself _have_ them, if they—” 

He’d been speaking all in a rush but now he stops, looking poleaxed. He stares at Liam, wide-eyed, and Liam silently begs _say something,_ and Theo does.

“—want me too,” he concludes, his cheeks _flushing._

Liam stares at him for exactly two total seconds, and then he practically _throws_ himself on top of Theo, pressing him down, _down_ against the concrete steps. _That probably isn’t comfortable,_ he thinks absently, but Theo apparently doesn’t care; he presses up into Liam’s mouth just as hard as Liam is pressing down into him. Liam’s still holding his _goddamn_ beer bottle; he flails his hand sideways to try and set it down on the porch behind himself, and hears it go clacking down the steps as he apparently misses.

He doesn’t care. He cares about _very little_ other than the way his hands fit _exactly_ as well around the edges of Theo’s jaw as he always knew they would. He moans, and deepens the kiss.

“You—you fucking _idiot,_ ” he bites out, because Theo _had_ to have known. _Everyone_ had known. Graham constantly asking him where his boyfriend is. The pack’s soft sympathetic eyes. _Theo_ constantly looking at him, and looking away from him, and touching his tattoos, his scent souring with fear. 

He _had_ to have known.

“Did you think I _didn’t?_ ” Liam demands, his lips _dragging_ against Theo’s as he does.

“I didn’t think it mattered,” Theo answers breathlessly, and _that’s_ enough to break Liam out of the moment. He pulls back to stare at Theo at the same time that Theo pulls back to stare at _him._ Theo’s expression crumples again. “I didn’t think I could _let_ it matter.”

 _He’s not afraid of you,_ Scott had told him quietly, all those years ago. _He’s afraid_ for _you._

 _I’m sorry,_ Liam thinks again, his own expression crumpling up. _I’m so sorry._

He’s off-balanced enough by the guilt that swirls in his chest, and the infinite-seeming loop of him staring down at Theo staring up at him, that when Theo suddenly bursts into movement, Liam can’t react fast enough to stop him. “Hey!” He protests, and tries to catch Theo’s arm— _he’s leaving_ —but Theo skitters too quickly away, his beer left behind so that both of his hands can rise, and rake back through his hair. The condensation from his bottle had left his left hand damp, and it leaves one side of his hair slicked back with the moisture. Liam finds himself distracted and staring at it.

But he snaps out of it fast when Theo bites out, “And _christ,_ this is the absolute _worst_ timing for this.” 

He’d wheeled away when he’d first stood and now he wheels back; Liam finds himself oddly gratified by it, the seemingly-reciprocated magnetic pull between them. 

But then Theo starts saying, “Liam, _I’m_ sorry. I know you—feel trapped in Beacon Hills, that you don’t want,” and Liam just _can’t_ let this stand. He’s on his feet and surging into Theo before he’s really even thought about it. They go stumbling back a few steps before Theo manages to steady them—Theo _always_ steadying them—and he doesn’t fight it when Liam kisses him again. 

But Liam does it fast, because he _has_ to pull back. Because he has to say, “Ask me how I learned that trick that let me save Alec’s life.”

Theo stares, but Liam just keeps thinking _maybe that’s something else you should get to work on changing,_ and he wants—he _needs_ —Theo to understand. 

He’s about to prompt Theo again when Theo—slowly, but obediently—repeats, “How’d you learn that trick that let you save Alec’s life?”

“Scott,” Liam answers immediately, his eyes _fixed_ on Theo’s. “At your trial.”

Theo starts to flinch— _he’s not afraid of you, he’s afraid_ for _you. For all of us, really_ —but Liam doesn’t give him a chance to dwell. He dives back in, and kisses the flinch right from Theo’s mouth. 

He pulls back, and gasps, “And that’s not the only—”

 _I don’t know how to put this into words,_ Liam realizes, so he doesn’t. He kisses Theo again. He drops his forehead against Theo’s own, and _rolls_ it, his eyes squeezed shut and his fingers anchored around Theo’s jaw. 

But then—but then Theo brings his own hands up to cradle Liam’s wrists, steady like support beams, like cables sunk deep in the earth to _hold,_ and Liam can breathe again. He can _think_ again. 

He opens his eyes. He thinks of Graham’s book— _reporter_ —of Council opinions, and then way Graham had said _whatever he’s doing? It’s working,_ with a barely contained sense of awe, and then he looks at Theo, and he says, “I’ve got more to learn.” His expression scrunches up, and his fingers spasm on Theo’s jaw, and his voice is rougher when he explains, “I’ve got more—more _Alecs_ to help, and I just—”

He’s losing steam. He presses his forehead back to Theo’s. In this position he can feel each and every one of Theo’s inhales, and exhales, puffing against his own lips. He realizes with a jolt that he and Theo are sharing air, and that comforts somehow; holding some part of Theo inside of himself. He finds he can relax his fingers.

He can pull back, and smile—wobbly, but _there_ —at Theo, and joke, “And, you know. I’m thinking maybe Beacon Hills isn’t so bad. It’s got _some_ things to recommend it,” except for how he isn’t joking at all.

Theo doesn’t seem to know what to do, or say. He breathes, “Liam,” soft and stunned.

“What,” Liam interrupts, bouncing a little on his toes, pushing a little more into Theo’s space, because that _possibility_ that had frissoned down his spine at the Kollmanns’ is back, and reacting with all the nervous energy in his chest, transmuting it into motion. “You had—Lydia and your Walden Pond moment out in the woods,” Liam reminds him. “I had—”

He has to stop, and swallow, because _shame_ threatens to calcify all the nervous bubbling excitement in his chest into something else. He thinks: _you’re the true alpha’s beta._ He thinks: _I’m Scott’s second._

He thinks: _I saved somebody’s_ life _yesterday_. He forces himself through.

“—that really horrible ride into town this morning, and an incredibly raucous werewolf pack, who were really unsympathetic to my plight, actually and—”

He has to cut himself off or he’s just going to keep rambling on. He does it by leaning forward, and kissing Theo, because he _can_ and he _wants_ to, and most importantly: 

_Theo_ wants him to. He lingers, kissing Theo slow and deep and thoroughly.

“You want,” he says, when he finally manages to pull himself back, “to try living.” Because that’s what Theo had _said._ “And I want to try—being this person I have the opportunity to be.”

He bites his lip. He tightens his fingers around Theo’s jaw, just a little. 

“What do you think?” He wonders, the question more than a little a _plea._ “What if we try together? What if we—we help each other figure out how?”

Theo stares at him. In his chest, Theo’s heart—his _sister’s_ heart, or one of them anyway, Liam’s mind briefly flashing back to Lisbeth, and he feels something like _resolve_ harden in his own chest—starts to pound, even more so than it had been. 

His fingers around _Liam’s_ wrists spasm.

“Yes,” he says, and then _he’s_ surging into _Liam_ to kiss him. Liam doesn’t realize how wide a helpless smile has broken over his face until he realizes how it’s keeping Theo from kissing him all that successfully, though it doesn’t stop Theo from trying. “Yes,” he says, in between attempts. “ _God,_ yes. Liam—” 

He gives up on speaking, and brings his hands up to hold Liam’s face as he angles Liam’s head where he wants it—Liam instantly _going,_ giddy with the feeling of being able to give Theo exactly what he wants, of _being_ exactly what Theo wants—and kisses him deeper, over and over again.

They’re interrupted by a loud and gratifyingly impressed-sounding wolf-whistle from the street. They both jerk back. They both stare at the other. Theo’s mouth is _bitten_ red, and there’s no way Liam’s is any better. 

_I want to put my mouth there,_ Liam thinks, and he _can_ and he’s _going_ to, because Theo had said: _I want to let myself want the things that I want. I want to let myself_ have _them,_ _if they want me too._

“We should go inside,” he says, a little blank with the whole universe of _possibilities_ that are unspooling themselves out in front of him.

In front of _them._

“Come inside with me,” Liam says, more firmly.

Theo doesn’t even hesitate. “Yeah,” he breathes. “Yeah, yes,” and then he goes where Liam pulls him; he follows after Liam exactly like he used to.

\---

Liam wakes up the next morning wrapped around Theo’s back.

He experiences a brief, _overwhelming_ surge of déjà-vu. He’d woken up wrapped around Theo’s back _yesterday,_ too, only then Theo had been lupine-shaped, and Liam had felt hollowed-chested and exhausted, and _now…_

He pulls Theo tighter back against himself as he _presses_ himself just as firmly forward, the hand he doesn't have folded underneath his head smoothing down Theo’s side, over the bumps and divots of his ribs, and muscles, and hipbones. Theo stirs as he does, his whole _body_ giving an interested little twitch—Liam’s hand skating past his soft cock, and over his thigh, before dragging back _up_ —and he blinks, and then twists his head sideways so that he can look at Liam over his own shoulder. 

“Hi,” he croaks, his voice sleep-rough and burring.

“Hi,” Liam echoes, and then ducks forward to kiss him.

Theo shudders and tries to twist around even further. Liam’s in the way, though; he breaks off kissing Theo for just long enough that Theo can go flat, and then he moves _immediately_ back forward to cover him. He slots in between Theo’s legs. Theo brings up his knees to cage Liam in.

“Lydia,” he points out, even as he’s dropping his mouth open for the stroke of Liam’s tongue, “could come home from her friend’s any minute.”

“I don’t care,” Liam immediately denies, because he _doesn’t._

 _I love you,_ Theo had confessed last night. _I think I always I have._

Last night Liam had been giddy, riding high on the world suddenly shuddering to a stop on its axis and reorienting itself. Now he feels _raw,_ a nerve half-exposed, something a little desperate in the way that he presses himself down against Theo; that he fits a hand around the curve of Theo’s jaw, holding him still for his mouth; that he flattens his other hand against Theo’s chest, not so much a pin as an _anchor-point._

He has the rest of his goddamn life to be the true alpha’s beta, but that doesn’t mean… He squeezes his eyes shut. He kisses Theo _harder._

But: “Liam,” Theo murmurs, and tangles his fingers in Liam’s hair to _grip,_ and pry Liam’s head gently, but insistently, up and away from his own. He spends a few seconds flicking his eyes between both of Liam’s, studying him. It’s only then that Liam realizes how fast his heart had started to pound. The room still reeks of sex— _they_ still reek of sex—but Theo’s _Theo;_ there’s no way he hasn’t dug Liam’s scent out of the mess to start picking it apart.

Liam nearly reflexively pulls it back into himself; calms it. In the end he lets it spill out _more,_ his eyes going heavy-lidded as he stares back at Theo. 

Theo looks back for a few more seconds, and then he slowly, _slowly,_ guides Liam back down, until Theo can kiss him, soft but _thoroughly._

And then his lips curve slightly against Liam’s mouth, and he says, “You know, you made me a promise last night.”

Liam jerks, immediately casting his mind back. A _promise?_ Christ, he could have said almost anything last night. And if he _did,_ Theo really can’t blame him. Liam will call _every_ foul on any attempt. 

But Theo’s still— _smiling,_ Liam realizes. Theo’s still _smiling_ against his lips, and it’s really more of a _grin._ Almost a _smirk,_ really. Liam feels his brow furrow. Probably Theo feels it too; they’re pressed close enough together, Theo’s forehead against his own.

Theo’s _knees_ pinch in a little more against Liam’s ribs. His hips rock just slightly upwards.

 _Oh,_ Liam thinks, remembering: _I swear, Theo, I’m going to pin you down to_ whatever _flat surface I can find—_ every _flat surface I can find—and fuck you through each and every one._

Theo’s grin widens against his mouth; _Liam’s_ hips had jerked down against his own. He twists his fingers a little more in Liam’s hair, pulling the strands taut and causing Liam to _gasp_ and his eyelids to flutter shut as Theo rocks his _own_ hips up against Liam’s.

“This _is_ a flat surface,” he reminds Liam, _completely_ unnecessarily: Liam _knows_ it’s a flat surface, okay. Now that he’s thought about it—now that Theo has dragged his half-sensical if _earnestly meant_ oath back into the light—he can’t _stop_ thinking about how it’s a flat surface.

“You said Lydia could be home any minute,” _he_ reminds _Theo,_ more than a little breathlessly.

Theo shrugs, his shoulders sliding against the sheets beneath him with a soft _shir._ “I don’t care,” he dismisses, echoing Liam’s earlier words.

He surges up into Liam at the same time that Liam surges down into him.

Liam _grinds_ down against him, his cock now fully hard and _arching._ Theo’s in the same state, and he breaks away to suck in a sharp breath as Liam continues to rock his hips. It exposes the side of his neck, and that’s too much a temptation for Liam to resist.

It’s a temptation he doesn’t _have_ to resist anymore. _I want to put my mouth there,_ he remembers thinking last night, the bas-relief edges of Theo’s throat on display, and so he _does._

Theo _moans._

He also arches up against him, and brings his legs up to lock around Liam’s hips, but Liam wants—everything, really, but something more specific right at this moment. He reaches back with both hands, his weight braced on his knees and his shoulders pressing against Theo’s own, and puts them on the insides of _Theo’s_ knees. 

He pushes them down, and sideways, breaking Theo’s hold. He keeps going—ignoring Theo’s confused protest—and guides them further _up,_ and apart, his palms twisting against Theo’s skin so that he’s gripping the backs of Theo’s thighs, just above his knees. He spreads Theo’s legs wider. He spreads them _wider._

“Liam,” Theo gasps, his whole body pliant and following exactly where Liam leads. Liam _bites_ at the ridge of his throat in appreciation, and this time when Theo’s hips jerk their new positions mean that Liam’s cock drags _directly_ against his rim. “Oh,” Theo whimpers, the sound of it nearly _lupine,_ “ _fuck._ ”

This time it’s _Liam_ who grins against _Theo’s_ skin.

As had probably been inevitable, both he and Theo had, at various points last night, rolled over their bottle of gifted lube, the ridiculous red bow that’d adorned it, and the note— _ **for T & L, but ONLY if you get your heads out of your asses :)**_—that Stiles’ had stuck to its side, and eventually they’d given up and dig all three out of the tangled mess of the sheets, and dumped them all on the nightstand. Now, Liam leans over—he and Theo both moaning at the drag of Liam’s cock against Theo’s rim, and Theo’s own cock—to retrieve the bottle of lube. It takes him a few seconds; Theo takes advantage to lean up, and _drag_ his tongue up the side of Liam’s throat to the sensitive skin behind his ear, where he starts to _suck._ Liam’s eyes roll back a little in his skull at the sensation, his fingers tangling in the strings of the bow as he tries to fight the lube free from the little pile of bottle-bow-note.

He manages it, finally; no thanks to Theo. He jerks back straight and then surges down to press his lips to Theo’s in a punishingly hard kiss, though Theo just moans and arches up into it, uncowed. More than that: “ _Please,_ ” he begs against Liam’s mouth, his legs—one of Liam’s hands still on the back of one of his thighs, his other leg still curved up, and out, even without Liam’s guiding fingers—still spread wide around Liam’s hips. Liam nods a little frantically against his lips, and fumbles to get the lube bottle open with one hand.

He manages it, but he has _no_ desire to release Theo’s other leg—his fingers digging _hard_ into Theo’s thigh—so he defaults to the next best thing: he maneuvers the little bottle directly over Theo’s rim, and squeezes out a healthy dollop. Theo jerks and bites off a high, surprised noise—not altogether pleased—at the temperature.

Liam just grins against the side of his head. “Big baby,” he taunts, specifically for the way that he _knows_ it’ll make Theo scowl, and turn to glare at him. 

He takes advantage once Theo’s done exactly that to _drag_ his fingers through the slickness now coating Theo’s rim, and _press_ one finger inside, all in a smooth, effortless glide. Theo’s glare transmutes _instantly_ into a hooded dazed stare as his mouth drops open and his eyelashes flutter, and his hips rock _up_ against Liam’s hand. Liam kisses his cheek, and then his temple, and then he buries his face in the side of Theo’s neck as he begins to work his finger in and out, loosening the tight muscle.

He spends a few seconds skating the tip of his nose over the sensitive skin of the curve of Theo’s ear, making him shudder, and then he ducks back behind it to lave his tongue over the spot where Theo’s scent is strongest—his lungs filling up with it, and causing _his_ hips to jerk, even as Theo’s continue to rock up against his hand—but it’s not _enough._ He wants _more,_ he wants _everything,_ and—

 _I want to let myself want the things that I want. I want to let myself have them, if they want me, too,_ Theo had said.

Liam rises up, instantly and without warning, and sits back on his heels, his finger still buried deep within Theo’s ass. Theo sucks in a sharp breath and stares up at him as he breathlessly wonders, “What…?”

“I want something,” Liam tells him. “I thought I might let myself have it.”

Theo’s eyes widen. He clearly recognizes the reference. Liam grins at him, and then he—ducks down, and takes Theo’s cock in his mouth at the same time that he starts moving his finger once again.

Theo _gasps_ and _arches,_ and he does the latter hard enough—his back curving in that much of a bow—that Liam has to adjust to follow him. He gives his own moan, and takes Theo in deeper.

He pulls his finger out, and drags it and the one right next to it back through the mess of lube still coating Theo’s rim, and then presses _both_ back inside Theo. 

“Jesus,” Theo pants, one of his hands coming down to slide into Liam’s hair, and _grip_. “Jesus, _jesus._ ” His opposite foot comes up to brace around the curve of Liam’s shoulder as he rolls his hips in time with Liam’s pumping fingers.

 _That’s it,_ Liam thinks, _pressing_ his tongue up against the underside of Theo’s cock and then _dragging_ the tip of it up across Theo’s skin, his lips closed in a tight seal as he sucks. _C’mon, Theo. That’s it._

“ _Liam,_ ” Theo cries at one point, and that’s how Liam knows he’s ready for a third finger. 

He pulls off of Theo’s cock at the same time that he slides his fingers free of Theo’s ass, but he _immediately_ dives back down to _bite_ at Theo’s inner thigh as he gets _three_ fingers coated in the mess of lube he’d slicked around Theo’s rim. Theo’s fingers are still in his hair. His foot is still curved around Liam’s shoulder.

“ _Please,_ ” he pleads, and so Liam bites him again, and then rears up to swallow his cock back down at the same time that he presses his three fingers against Theo’s rim, and then presses them _in._

Theo’s fingers spasm tightly enough in his hair to _pull_. His foot slips off of Liam’s shoulder as he moans and arches, and Liam catches it and then pins it out _wide,_ opening up Theo even more for his pumping fingers. He bobs his head. He scissors his fingers.

He considers, as he feels Theo’s cock get harder and harder against his tongue, whether or not he wants to let Theo come yet. And then he thinks of all the soft secret looks that Theo has given him over the years—the way he’d drag his fingers over his tattoos after like a rebuke, like a _reminder,_ whenever he’d catch himself doing it; _he’s not afraid of you, he’s afraid_ for _you_ —and he decides that _all_ he wants is to let Theo come.

All he wants is to _make_ Theo come.

“C’mon,” he says, pulling off of Theo’s cock. His voice is a shredded rasp from taking Theo’s cock deep and he can see the way that Theo’s dilate even further when he hears it. “Like this,” he tells Theo, twisting his fingers inside Theo’s ass and ducking back down to press the flat of his tongue to the tip of Theo’s cock. “ _C’mon._ ”

Theo stares at him for a few more blank, uncomprehending seconds—his hair sweat-damp and tangled where it’s plastered against his forehead, his eyes unfocused—and then he tips his head back, and _moans_ as he does exactly as Liam had ordered, and starts to come.

Liam releases his ankle so that he can bring his free hand over, and stroke Theo through it.

Through it and then _past_ it, Theo shuddering and shaking and gasping through the last of his orgasm, but Liam doesn’t stop. “Liam,” Theo protests weakly, his breath hitching. His stomach’s a mess. _He’s_ a mess, his limbs loose and sprawled out and _open;_ making room for Liam in between them. 

Liam leaves off stroking him, but as he ducks down to kiss Theo, he makes sure to do it in such a way that his chest and stomach _drag_ against Theo’s still half-hard cock as he goes. 

Theo cries out, and Liam swallows the sound.

He also slides his fingers free, and starts searching around for the lube bottle. The problem: he’d _dropped it_ carelessly off to the side, and now it’s—disappeared somewhere in the sheets again. Liam feels his expression go dry.

He feels Theo’s lips twist up in amusement against his own as he realizes. “You were doing really well there until you were defeated by a five-ounce bottle of lube.”

“Shut up,” Liam immediately orders him, biting at his bottom lip in rebuke. It doesn’t change the fact that he’s _smiling,_ though, amusement—something else: _I love you, I_ know _I always have_ —bubbling in his chest. 

He sits back on his heels as Theo _laughs,_ and he begins a visual _survey_ of the sheets, determined to find the renegade bottle of lube. He does. He waggles it at Theo in victory, and then spends a few seconds just staring down at him.

Theo’s legs are splayed open, one of his thighs resting easy on one of Liam’s knees. His cock—still half-hard—is flushed red and shiny with spit and come, and his stomach is streaked with the latter, too. His arms he has crooked by his head—he’d tangled them in his own hair as he’d been coming, and then let them sprawl bonelessly out after—and his expression is easy, and relaxed, and he’s grinning up at Liam, just patiently waiting for what Liam does—for what Liam _wants_ —next.

 _You,_ Liam thinks, ducking down to kiss him. _Always you._

He brings the lube bottle over as he does so that he can flick it back open, and drizzle a small amount over his fingers. He tosses it away again—even as some part of himself is wondering if he’s going to regret doing so—and gets his fingers slicked back up.

He reaches down, and coats his own cock, his eyelashes fluttering shut at the smooth glide. “God, _Theo,_ ” he moans.

Theo had lifted his hands to slide them into _Liam’s_ hair as Liam had bent over him. He tightens them now, and nods a little frantically against Liam’s mouth. “Yeah, Liam,” he breathes. “ _Please._ ”

Liam doesn’t waste time. He gets the tip of his cock positioned at Theo’s entrance—Theo canting his hips up further to help—and then starts pushing down, _down,_ in a slow, steady press. Theo _groans,_ his head arching back, and— _I want to put my mouth there_ —Liam drops his lips to Theo’s throat, and drags his tongue over the bumps, and ridges, of Theo’s Adam’s apple.

He doesn’t stop until he’s bottomed out.

But he doesn’t start moving right away. Instead he shushes Theo when Theo makes a confused sound, and slides his arms underneath Theo’s shoulders, and then _sits_ back, pulling Theo up with him. 

Theo understands what he wants immediately. He gets his legs folded underneath himself so that he’s kneeling astride Liam’s lap, and he _moans_ as the new position means he slides down even further, even _deeper,_ around Liam’s cock. He drops his forehead to Liam’s shoulder. He _pants._

“Oh god,” he gasps. “Oh, Liam, _ah._ ”

Liam turns his face against Theo’s own, and presses a firm kiss to Theo’s temple. He slides his hands down from Theo’s shoulders to his ass, and then he _grips_ so that he can lift Theo partially off of his cock, and then lower him back down. Theo cries out—his mouth opening against Liam’s shoulder in a wet sound—and so Liam does it again. _Again._

It doesn’t take Theo long to start copying his rhythm, and _help._ He lifts up on his knees as Liam pulls him up, and he drives himself back down when Liam goes to lower him. It means that Liam and start thrusting _up_ to meet him in turn, fucking himself deeper, _harder,_ into Theo. 

They’re moving too fast, too hard, to kiss, but that doesn’t stop Theo from turning his face into Liam’s, and pressing his open, panting mouth to Liam’s cheek. Liam groans and turns into it the best he can, the two of them all but breathing against each other as their hips continue to piston; as Liam continues to fuck him.

But: _I swear, Theo, I’m going to pin you down to_ whatever _flat surface I can find—_ every _flat surface I can find—and fuck you through each and every one,_ Liam had promised.

He tightens his hands on Theo’s hips, stilling them. He _bites_ Theo’s protests from his lips.

“Up,” he orders, encouraging Theo to do just that with his hands. Theo doesn’t go right away—tries to grind _down_ —and Liam grins against the side of his head. “ _Up,_ ” he orders, more forcefully, and this time he doesn’t give Theo a choice; he lifts him up, and off of his cock.

“ _Liam,_ ” Theo complains, but Liam just moves back at the same time that he shoves Theo backwards, hard and without warning.

Theo hits his back looking poleaxed, and blinks up at Liam.

Liam follows him down, and skims the tip of his nose up across Theo’s. “Turn over,” he instructs, and he _sees it_ when Theo’s pupils dilate, and _he_ apparently remembers: _I’m going to pin you down to_ whatever _flat surface I can find—_ every _flat surface I can find—and fuck you through each and every one._

He turns over.

Liam wastes no time. He reaches down and takes himself in hand, and presses himself back up to Theo’s entrance. He presses _down,_ sliding back inside Theo in one smooth, slick glide.

Theo had clutched his hands in the sheets by his head. Liam covers them with his own, threading his fingers through Theo’s and _squeezing,_ and he ducks his head so that it’s right next to Theo’s, his lips brushing the corner of Theo’s mouth.

“Ready?” He asks.

“ _Please,_ ” Theo pleads.

Liam moves.

“Ah, _god,_ ” Theo gasps, turning his face down and into the sheets as he cries out. Liam feels it as he shifts, but it’s only to spread his legs _wider,_ to curl them up, and around Liam’s own, to anchor himself more completely to Liam and give Liam more room to _thrust._ Liam releases one of Theo’s hands to catch Theo’s forehead, and smooth his hand back over Theo’s sweaty hair. 

He releases his _other_ hand to slide it down Theo’s left forearm, and then close his fingers _hard_ around Theo’s tattoos. 

“That’s it,” he breathes, as Theo sucks in a sharp breath and tightens around him like a _vice._ “That’s it, Theo. _C’mon._ ” He grinds down _harder_ against Theo’s ass, making sure his cock drags against Theo’s rim—against that spot inside of him, Theo jerking and bucking and gasping—as he pulls out, and thrusts back in.

He presses his face harder against the side of Theo’s, his eyes closed and his hand still holding Theo’s head partially up so that he can hear every one of Theo’s panting breaths, his shocky, gasping cries, and he does his best to do exactly as he promised: to fuck Theo right through this flat surface that Theo had pointed out Liam had been pinning him to.

“Liam, I’m going to—” Theo starts to gasp, and Liam wants to _see_ it, and so he sits back on his heels—dragging Theo with him—so that Theo is once more sitting astride his lap, his legs spread wide around Liam’s knees and his hard cock—red, leaking wetness—is on full display. Liam keeps Theo’s head pinned back to his shoulder with the hand he’d had on Theo’s forehead, and drops his other hand to Theo’s cock as he starts to stroke, tight and fast.

Theo cries out, the blast of air _gusting_ past Liam’s ear and making him shiver, and comes.

Liam watches, his chin hooked over Theo’s shoulder as he stares down at the tip of Theo’s cock disappearing in and out of the tight circle of his fingers, Theo coming all over his hand, Liam’s thighs, _Theo’s_ thighs. He doesn’t stop stroking even when the twitching of Theo’s cock starts to slow, and Theo melts back against him, still half-pinned with his head on Liam’s shoulder and Liam’s hand still on his forehead.

“Ah, fuck, Liam,” he gasps, his voice shredded. His hips jerk helplessly against Liam’s, trying to no doubt get _away_ , too sensitive, except that the next second he presses up _into_ the continuing glide of Liam’s fist. He turns his face a little more into Liam’s neck, and hides it there as he groans, “ _Hngh._ ”

 _He’d let me get him off again, just like this,_ Liam realizes, no matter that he just came. No matter that he just came for the _second_ time, and he must be _wildly_ oversensitive. The thought makes _Liam’s_ hips buck up against Theo’s, his _achingly_ hard cock still buried in Theo’s ass. 

_Next time,_ he thinks. Or the time after _that,_ or after _that._ He grins against the side of Theo’s head, helpless, and then releases Theo’s forehead.

He holds Theo steady as he slowly maneuvers himself free of Theo’s body—Theo giving a shocky gasp as he does—and then gets a hand on Theo’s shoulder to encourage him around. Theo goes, but wobbles as he does, and Liam has to catch him as he nearly tips sideways, his limbs apparently too jelly-like to be of much help.

“Like this,” Liam explains quietly, and slowly guides Theo backwards, following him down so that they’re chest-to-chest again, and Liam’s covering Theo hips to shoulders. 

He keeps his eyes fixed on Theo’s own as he takes hold of his cock, and presses back inside Theo’s ass. 

Theo _tries_ to keep looking at him, Liam can tell that he does, but he can’t manage it: his eyelashes flutter shut and he moans, soft and throaty, and turns his head to the side. _I love you,_ Liam thinks. “Almost there,” he tells Theo, and he starts to _move_ again.

He doesn’t drag it out. He’s _already_ dragged it out, as much as he wants to, and now he wants to come, just like this: buried inside Theo’s body and with Theo soft and pliant underneath him, no pinning necessary except how Theo clearly _wants_ to be pinned. He closes his own eyes, and presses his forehead to Theo’s temple, and _moves._

He comes with a choked-off cry not long after, his hips pressed up flush to Theo’s ass and Theo’s arms wrapped around his shoulders, holding him close. 

He stays right where he is for a half-minute, a minute, two. Theo just drops his hands from Liam’s shoulders to his back, and drags his fingers up Liam’s spine in soothing, repetitive strokes, his face turned into Liam’s. 

“I love you,” he breathes, after a while.

Liam turns even harder into _him._ He squeezes his eyes shut as they start to burn. “I love _you,_ ” he answers, and grins, helpless and unstoppable, when he feels Theo shake a little with laugher, because he _knows_ what Theo just thought about: _Liam’s_ love confession earlier immediately following Theo’s, Theo laughing _you competitive asshole, you just can’t help yourself, can you?_

It’s in that spirit that Liam rises up on his palms so that he can look down at Theo. He wonders, his tongue burrowed _firmly_ in his cheek: “So? How’d I do? Promise kept?”

Theo’s expression flickers with surprise, and then scrunches up with the force of his grin. “Well,” he says, letting his arms fall out to the side so that he can _twist_ his hands in the sheets below him. “I think we’re going to have to burn these sheets, so.”

He grins. 

Liam _laughs._

\---

Half an hour later, the both of them downstairs and showered and by unspoken agreement standing on opposite sides of the kitchen—though Liam can’t stop shooting helpless, ducked-brow glances at Theo only to find him almost _always_ already looking back—Lydia walks through the front door, and immediately smirks.

“About goddamn time,” she declares.

Liam had startled when she’d walked through the door—had been too busy looking at Theo to hear her coming—and now he startles _again._ “What!” He yelps, jerking his gaze guiltily away from Theo. “We’re not even standing anywhere _near_ each other!”

Theo just rolls his eyes. He goes to help Lydia with the bags she’s carrying even as Lydia is countering, “You don’t _need_ to be,” like that makes any sense at all to anyone who isn’t a super genius. Liam scowls.

But he’s also _starving—_ he had a very _energetic_ morning, he thinks, smirking a little to himself—and Lydia brought bagels from the corner deli that’s been there since like, the First World War. And even more than that: Theo is smiling, soft and _happy_ and shamelessly as he accepts the coffee that Lydia hands him, and asks, “What gave us away?”

Liam had already dug a bagel out of the bag, and gone to toast it. Still, he hears it when Lydia quietly answers, “You’re smiling. You both are. _Real_ smiles.”

Liam grins down at the toaster, wide and helpless and with something ripe and bursting-feeling blooming in his chest.

Theo and Lydia head back to MIT after they’ve eaten—and after Lydia has extracted a sly-mouthed promise from him and Theo that they won’t tell Stiles that they had, _quote,_ gotten their collective heads out of their asses—and Liam—nervousness fluttering in his stomach—heads back to the Kollmanns.

Graham’s the one who opens the door this time, which probably isn’t a coincidence. He grins down at Liam once he has.

“Be honest with me,” he says, dispensing with _all_ formalities, “it was the beer, wasn’t it?”

Liam laughs, and lets Graham haul him into a squeezed-tight, back-slapping embrace. “Before you ask,” Liam shoots back, tongue firmly in cheek, “my boyfriend is with Lydia at MIT, helping make sure no one accidentally blows up the world.”

Graham just reaches up to ruffle his hair, ignoring Liam’s squawk of a protest. “Well, we’re in good hands, then,” he decides, and then drops his arm around Liam’s shoulders to finish hauling him inside.

He also drags him straight through the house, and out the other side to the backyard. Eliza and TJ and Kris and Layla and Sam and Geordie are all already there, along with most of the rest of the pack and several random neighbors and friends. Liam spots the football set pointedly in the middle of the little huddle they’re in and groans.

“You’re all a bunch of _heathens,_ ” he declares, because _lacrosse_ is the true sport of the gods, but he joins Layla’s team when she picks him and he endures the good-natured riffing he gets for being, admittedly, really bad at throwing spirals.

He is, however, _excellent_ at tackling. Layla and Aimee _whoop_ the first—but certainly not the last—time Liam takes down Andrew like a rodeo calf.

He’s sweaty and filthy and his team is down by several dozen points by the time the game is called. Granted, the scoring system had gone a little wonky as Graham and/or Aimee had introduced random new rules at various points—“First person to leap-frog TJ gets an extra first down!” Graham had shouted at one point, and TJ had fled yelping away down the field as the rest of the pack had given chase—and so Liam’s not that worried about it. He high-fives Geordie—they’d tag-teamed Aimee’s offer of _twenty_ extra points to whoever could fell Graham “like a tree”—and then collapses panting on the grass.

He squints up at Graham when Graham comes to hover over him. “You want to stay for dinner?” He asks.

Liam accepts the hand that Graham offers, and squeaks only a little through the sudden rush of vertigo as Graham hauls him up, and onto his feet. “Nah,” he says, panting a little. He tips his head upwards so that he can shoot Graham an easy grin. “I think I owe Lydia like, an apology dinner for forcing her to flee her own house last night.”

Graham nods, accepting the demurrer gracefully, and claps Liam on the back. Liam goes stumbling forward a few steps at the force, but he’s laughing as he’s pulling out his phone to request a rideshare back to Lydia’s and Stiles’ and Derek’s.

He’s in the kitchen with Aimee and a handful of the other people when he gets the notification that it’s arrived. Halfway down the hallway to the front door, though, Graham calls his name, stopping him. 

“Hold up,” he orders, and then he finishes jogging a little the rest of the way to Liam, and holds something out for Liam to take.

It’s the book—the reporter, Liam remembers—containing the Council’s opinions in their latest cases. Liam runs a hand over the cover once he’s accepted it, and then looks up at Graham with his brow furrowing.

“Don’t you need this?” He wonders.

Graham shrugs. “I’ll get another.”

Liam hesitates for another second, and then he nods, and tucks the book under his arm. “Thanks,” he says softly, and doesn’t just mean for the gift.

Graham grins at him, though it’s a softer thing than some of his others. He reaches out and reels Liam in to a one-armed hug as he declares, “You know, I think the kids are alright.”

Liam squints up at him. “Aren’t like, me and Theo and Scott and the others the kids in this situation?”

“Yeah, and that’s why the kids are alright,” Graham agrees easily. He releases Liam, and pushes him lightly towards the door. “See you later, Beta Dunbar.”

Liam grins back, and gives him a sloppy little salute as he goes. “Bye, Alpha Kollmann.”

Back at Lydia’s he showers _again,_ and then he runs to the Pakistani grocer a few blocks away to pick up ingredients for dinner. He doesn’t know what half the spices and other smells are that he can scent when he opens the door, but he knows that he _loves_ it; behind the counter, Javed recognizes him almost instantly when he walks in, and Liam spends a few minutes even once he’s gathered up what he needs and dumped it all on the counter just chatting with him.

His phone rings as he’s on the way back to Lydia’s and Stiles’ and Derek’s place. Liam shifts his grip on his groceries so he can pull out his phone, and then _smirks._ “Hey, Stiles,” he greets, wiping it off his face, and then—Lydia’s sly-mouthed request foremost in his mind—he spends the rest of the walk, and then the time it takes him to get inside the house, and start preparing what he needs to cook dinner ready, effortlessly dodging Stiles’ attempts to pump him for information as to whether he and Theo did, or did not, successfully get their heads out of their asses.

Still, he looks up from his knife and cutting board—and continues to ignore his video call with Stiles, now streaming from the square of his tablet—as he hears the front door open. Theo’s already looking back, expression creasing in a seemingly-reflexive smile even as he’s heeling off his shoes. 

He also asks, “Are you _cooking?_ ”

He sounds pretty incredulous. Liam rolls his eyes, but: “I mean, it’s meat sauce,” he admits. “It’s browning ground beef and successfully boiling a pot of water, so, y’know. Don’t give me too much credit.” He grins up at Theo as Theo finishes coming into the kitchen, and rounding the island to peer down at Liam’s pile of ingredients.

He startles only a little, and then melts _right_ into it, when Theo leans down and kisses him without warning or fanfare.

He _laughs_ against Theo’s mouth when Stiles squawks, “Dunbar, you sneaky goddamn liar!”

He gets kicked off of chopping duty by dint of him, apparently, waving the chef’s in his hand around a little too enthusiastically. He keeps snarking Stiles as much as Stiles is snarking him as he hops up onto a free space of counter instead, grinning and grinning and grinning at Lydia, who keeps smirking right back in between helping Theo adjust the spices in the sauce that they eventually get simmering on the stove. 

He eats squeezed in between Lydia and Theo on one side of the Martin-Stilinki-Hale kitchen table so that they can all fit into the frame of their continuing call with Stiles. Liam’s almost over-warm with the press of both of them against him but he wouldn’t move for the _world,_ and he can’t stop shooting small secret looks at Theo, who keeps shooting them right back.

He shoots them right back, and doesn’t _once_ look away, or touch his tattoos. The whole house smells like pack and good food but underneath it Liam can tell that Theo’s scent never sours; it stays warm and full.

“Jesus,” Stiles eventually complains. “I _knew_ you two were going to be unbearable once you finally pulled your heads out of your asses.”

Liam grins, sly, and suddenly _lunges_ into Theo in response, _dipping_ him into an exaggerated kiss. Behind him in the video call Stiles squawks and complains and fakes a long string of gags, while Lydia and Derek and _Alec_ —Liam can hear him too, and the sound makes him grin _wider_ —all laugh.

Eventually the rest of the pack joins the video call, everyone joking and laughing and _living_. Eventually Lydia and Theo start sagging against Liam’s sides, the hour getting late. 

Eventually he and Theo have their talk in front of the sink, the pack said goodnight to and Lydia gone upstairs. “I know we have to go back to Beacon Hills,” Liam tells him, Theo paused with his hands in the sink but with his eyes fixed on Liam’s face. “I _want_ to go back to Beacon Hills—to go _home_ —but I was thinking that maybe you and me could—get a little lost on the way?”

Theo grins back, and kisses him with soapy hands around his face, and he agrees. He sends Liam up to their—now shared—guest bedroom after.

When he comes up a few minutes later, Liam just exiting the attached bathroom back into the main bedroom with his teeth freshly brushed, Theo is frowning thoughtfully down at the book that Graham had given Liam, and that Liam had set on the bed earlier today. He rests his fingers on the cover.

He looks up when he realizes that he has Liam’s attention. Liam studies him.

“You keep up with the cases?” He wonders, suddenly curious.

Theo nods, which isn’t a surprise. He looks back down at the book. “Scott would ask me what I thought sometimes, in between the hearings and the decisions.” He hesitates, then adds, “Shohreh, too, occasionally.”

Liam feels a reflexive twist of anger in his chest that he—stops, and studies, and then files away to examine later. To really _think_ about later: _she saved my life,_ Theo had argued just a few short days ago. Liam bites his lip. 

He picks his way over to Theo, so that he’s standing in front of him, and he looks up at Theo when Theo looks curiously down at him.

“I saved Alec,” Liam says, almost like—a confirmation. A testing of a statement of fact.

He gets his affirmation. “Yeah,” Theo agrees quietly. “You did.”

Liam keeps looking at him. He says, “Scott and Argent saved you,” then, after a split-second’s worth of hesitation: “Shohreh, too.”

That causes Theo to startle a bit, his eyes going just the slightest bit wide, but then he confirms, “Yeah, they did.”

Liam searches his face. He wonders, “How many more Alecs do you think there are out there? How many more _you’s?_ ”

Theo flinches. His expression flickers like he’d wanted to drop his eyes, but instead he keeps them locked with Liam’s. “More than there should be,” he answers softly; regretfully. Maybe a little _guiltily;_ never fully forgetting that he used to be one of the things that people used to need saving _from._

Liam glances down at the book containing the Council’s opinions. The book containing evidence that: _it’s working,_ according to Graham. _Whatever Scott’s doing, it’s working_. Liam bites his lip again.

He startles, a little, when he feels Theo’s fingers underneath his chin, guiding his head back up so that he’s once more looking at Theo. _He_ searches _Liam’s_ face.

“You want to go find them?” He wonders.

Liam feels his expression spasm. He corrects, “I want _us_ to go find them.”

Theo looks taken aback for a split second, and then a wide, helpless smile takes over his face. He ducks forward the next instant and presses his mouth to Liam’s. 

Liam presses _right_ back.

But then he pulls back—can feel how crinkled up the corners of his eyes are—and says, “But, y’know. Maybe _after_ we get a little lost, first.” He tilts his head, his lips folding between his teeth as his eyes crinkle further with the force of his smile.

Theo’s grin widens in an instant echo of Liam’s own. But instead of agreeing he just kisses Liam again, and then says against his mouth, “You know, I bet you and me? We could figure out how to do both.”

Liam jerks and pulls back to study him. When he sees the look on Theo’s face—steady, rock-solid, _easy_ —he grins, and surges right back into him; hard enough that Theo stumbles back a half-step, and they end up collapsing down onto the bed, still kissing.

Two days later, Liam sits in the passenger seat of Theo’ s car, Theo in the driver’s seat and the car itself in the Kollmanns’ driveway—Theo ribbed just as hard as Liam had been for the _entire_ time they were there, to Liam’s everlasting gratification—and he tips his phone back and forth as he studies the map of the area he’d pull up on-screen.

“Harbron pack next, right?” He checks with Theo. Theo pauses in putting on his seatbelt, and nods. Liam looks back down at the map, then asks: “What highway do you usually take to get there from here?”

Theo leans over so that he’s looking at the map, too. He spends a few moments getting himself oriented, and then points, tracing the path with his finger. “Highway 93 to 89. It’s the straightest shot.”

Liam studies where he’d indicated. Theo’s shoulder is pressing into his, warm and firm. He looks up, and looks at him. “Take 125 to 133 instead,” he decides.

Theo studies him for a few seconds, still leaned over the console, and then he smiles. He presses his lips to Liam’s in a brief kiss, and then he sits back, and gets his seatbelt finally clicked on, and the engine started.

When they get to Highway 125, he takes it.

**Author's Note:**

> All feedback loved! If you liked, please consider a comment or a [reblog](https://eneiryu.tumblr.com/)!


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